


The Heart Grows Fonder

by MystxMomo



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: A Family Can be 14 people and an overpowered former labrat, Eating Disorders, Hinata will interact with everyone at least once, Identity Issues, In Which Theres Something No Good Very Bad Very Wrong With Hinata Hajime, Making a Found Family, Multi, Not Canon Compliant, Pairings are all eventual, Post Game, Slow Burn, This Was Suppose to Be a One Shot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:41:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 33,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21835372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MystxMomo/pseuds/MystxMomo
Summary: For a while after waking up it’s just them. Just the five of them, a beat up island, and a limitless amount of time to spare.
Relationships: Hinata Hajime & Everyone, Hinata Hajime/Komaeda Nagito, Kirigiri Kyoko/Naegi Makoto/Togami Byakuya, Kuzuryu Fuyuhiko/Pekoyama Peko, Sonia Nevermind/Tanaka Gundham
Comments: 176
Kudos: 572





	1. Broken Room

**Author's Note:**

> Me: I don't know man, I don't have any projects where I'm like "Got my heart set on this one." Let me do a quick one shot and see how this idea feels out  
Me, 30 pages of writing and two weeks worth of chat logs later: "Understood, have a nice day."

Naegi, Kirigiri, and Togami stay on Jabberwock just long enough for them to get onto their feet.

It’s less a gift, and more promise fulfillment. Naegi had promised to keep them safe. Part of that promise was ensuring the five of them could stand on their own feet before they jump ship.

“Are you sure you don’t want us to send any help?” Naegi asks, concerned, just as he’s about to leave. And because he’s kind and stubborn adds, “I’m sure we can find people willing to work with you. We can do screening, and double check background credentials, and...”

Hinata tilts his head. Frowns. Observes the neat, concerned look the other gives him for the longest time until his careful answer of, “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” finds its way out. 

(The extra hands would be nice. The risk of something going wrong is too great, the price of blunder too looming.)

Kirigiri seems to understand, at least. She reaches out to touch Naegi’s shoulder, something silent that he’s observant enough to catch but too dense to understand passing between them. 

Then, she turns and walks away.

Naegi nods. Swallows, “Well,” he says, slowly, “If you need anything..”

“Private line,” Hinata interrupts. 

“And we’re gonna call uh-”

“Every Friday.”

They’ve been over this five times now. Hinata has been keeping track. He settles himself into one of the shipping containers and just watches the way Naegi scrambles to catch himself. 

He really doesn’t think it’s a good idea. Which is fine. Naegi’s allowed to think what he’d like.

“Okay,” Naegi says, and then more confidently. With more of a smile on his face, “Okay! Yeah. You’ll be fine.”

He’s trying to convince himself. The least he can do is work himself through this out of Hinata’s presence. 

“We will be,” Hinata agrees. Doesn’t sound as amused as he feels, but if Naegi notices or cares he makes no show of it.

“Hey,  _ you’re _ going to be fine, right?” Hinata finds himself asking, despite himself. Naegi blinks. Like it’d never occurred to him to consider that maybe he’s the one in immediate danger. Hinata clarifies, “Future Foundation isn’t going to give you like... too much shit for this, right?”

Naegi stares at him. For a long enough time that it borders on concerning, and Hinata considers waving his hand in his face to snap him back to.

Then he smiles. Wide, big, and hopeful, “I have it handled! You just... Focus on recovering. Okay?”

Hinata believes him. Kind of. What part of the lie he catches he makes no comment on, because he has bigger things to be concerned about.

  
  
  


For example. His hair is still long. 

Too long. Between everything going on, he hadn’t gotten a chance to cut it since waking up. He’s considered, of course, just taking the first blade he can find to it. But. He’s a coward. He can’t, for whatever reason, stomach the idea of handling one right now. Instead, he sits and runs his fingers back through it time and time again to try and keep it out of his face. 

(Eventually, after enough time passes and he must visibly grow frustrated, Sonia offers him an almost pitied look and walks over to pull it back for him. She doesn’t... Ask exactly, but he doesn’t pull away. Simply allows her to rake her fingers through his hair and do as she pleases with it.

The braid ends up looking nice. He does need to cut it, though.)

They gather at the hotel, as they always have.

The restaurant is exactly as they remember it, and at the same time entirely different.

The creators of the neo-world program must have been near miraculous in their detailing of Jabberwock. He can trace the same lines in the tables (Though his fingers come back with a coat of dust, and the polish has long since worn off the edges.) spot the same crevices in the bricks (It wasn’t something he’d paid too much attention to before.) and finds his eyes wandering over the same picture hung up on the right most wall (It’s water damaged, and deteriorating.)

They got the flower pots wrong though. They’re blue plastic, chipped and empty. Somehow, this is a relief to him. Empty is better then dead.

Hinata sits on a table, because all the chairs have been stacked off to the side at some point prior. Sort of, watches the group in front of him with his chin in his hands, and a gaze he knows is uncomfortably blank but cannot bring himself to change.

(Kuzuryu is missing an eye. Except not really. It’s more like he has the wrong eye, and it’s something he was quick to cover with a makeshift eyepatch. Owari stumbles when she walks, shakes when she gets too excited.)

“So, what do we do now?” 

It’s Souda that finally voices this. They’ve sort of just quietly loitered around the room, Souda walking a line into the floor and Sonia in deep thought. There’s a small wind chime, aged with rust, that’s been driving Hinata absolutely mad the entirety of the time they’ve been sitting here.

(Its sound is repetitive, predictable, and. Dull. Very dull.)

“I’ll tell you what we do!” Owari bounces forward, moves over to the wall. There are spots on it where the paper has already begun to peel, and she slaps her hand down on it with the force of a bomb. “We start here! Rip the place apart from top to bottom!”

“Ah- Ah!” Sonia goes wide-eyed, clasps her hands together, “Are you sure that is a good idea? We have not even taken stock of the supplies that we have!” 

“Yeah, but...” Owari scratches her cheek, “I don’t think leavin’ it like this is any better, you know? It’s all... Sad and broken.”

“Rather it be sad and  _ broken _ than torn apart and unstable.” Kuzuryu has taken to pacing between the tables like a tiger, observing anything and everything he can find. Hinata doesn’t bother to tell him there’s nothing interesting here. He figured that out within a minute of walking into the room. 

“We eat here, Owari.”

“Yeah, but it shouldn’t take...  _ Too _ long to clean this place up, you know?” Souda eyes some of the cracks in the wall, “There’s five of us and one room.”

“More like three!” Sonia points out, “Eating in a dirty kitchen is no good!”

“Right!” Souda barks, and Owari gives a nod that can only be described as sagely.

Kuzuryu looks decidedly unamused by the bunch. He watches them, blank and unimpressed. And then- 

“Hey. What do you think?” Kuzuryu turns to look at him, spinning on his heel suddenly and with force.

Hinata blinks, scrunches his nose up at suddenly being pulled into a conversation he’d had no part of beforehand. 

“...Me?” He asks, just to have something to say. Points lazily at himself with his free hand, vague and effortlessly.

“No, the other guy.” Hinata must get some kind of dark look on his face, because Kuzuryu is quickly sent fumbling with a “Fuck man, geeze! Sorry. It was a shitty joke.” Hinata has yet to say anything. In fact, Hinata has so little to say to that, that he turns his head back to the wall he’d been burning imaginary holes into with his gaze, and goes back to doing so.

“What do I think…” 

.

.

.

With a breath, he pulls himself up.

Walks over to the wall, opposite of Owari.

He reaches out, and after running a few mental calculations grabs the spot that will reap him the largest cut of paper.

Then he yanks. The strip of wallpaper follows under his grip, down until it hits the floor. There’s something satisfying, in the way the piece rolls up in his hands. And though it reveals a dark, disgusting patch of mold, he’s satisfied enough with the show not to care.

“Like Owari said. We start over,” Hinata says, with a shrug. Tosses the roll off to the side and lets it coil on the floor. “It’s our home now, isn’t it? We should make it feel like one.” 

The small group stares at him. He’s not sure if they expected a different answer, or if they’re just processing his small bought of destruction. But the silence is calculated, and tense, and then -

“Hinata,” Kuzuryu says. Slowly. With purpose, “I need you to promise to never say anything that fucking lame again.”

It’s enough to break the silence. Owari gives a loud hollar of approval, bouncing on heels (Something, he notes, causes her to wobble backwards.) Sonia’s gaze wavers from intense to determined in the snap of a second, smile lit up on her face and fists balling together. Souda’s shoulders fall, and though his laughter is nervous, it’s there.

It’s enough. It’s just enough.

“Look,” Hinata can’t (literally, physically cannot) break his voice past the steady monotone it falls into. 

“ _ Look _ ,” he tries again, ignoring the sharp laughter he gets as a result, “It made a point?”

“It sure did!” Sonia nods, hands together, ponytail bouncing with each bob of her head. “You did very good Hinata!”

(Her approval is meaningless. He appreciates it nonetheless.)

“Alright! Lemme get my hands DIRTY!” Owari goes in, immediately, to ripping at the more obvious spots on the wall. Her gain is hardly as successful as his, but she makes up for it in earnest and hardy speed.

“Yeah? Yeah. Okay. Okay, wow, shit, we’re doing this  _ now _ , huh?” Kuzuryu’s eye widens as he watches the sudden bustle in front of him, and Hinata does not miss how lost he seems to look. 

The feeling doesn’t stick.

“Hell yeah we are! Come on, you’re gonna help me tear this place DOWN!” She lulls in her destruction long enough to snatch up his arm and yank him forward instead.

(More force than necessary, but not the same amount of power she normally carries. Something to keep an eye on.)

“Hey, hey! Be careful about that!” He snaps, stumbles, but certainly does not fight her. In fact, as he catches his balance, something of an uneasy grin crosses over his features.

Hinata’s still trying to figure out what to do. They don’t need three people working on removing wallpaper, afterall.

“I shall go see what was left at the Market!” Sonia nods to herself, eyes still lit with something sharp. “There must be something we can use to make cleaning this place up a little easier! And- Supplies! We need supplies.” She looks around, like she’s making some kind of mental note of just everything they might end up needing. 

(Brooms, mops, buckets, bleach, cleaner, rags, paint…)

“Miss Sonia, let me come with you,” Souda announces, loudly. The smile Sonia sends him is carefully polite. Polite as ice, dripping with a chill only Souda can miss.

“No, that’s quite alright,” She tells him, with the patience of a saint. “I’m sure there are things that need done here. I need no assistance. Thank you though!”

Curt. Sharp. Cutting. Her patience was carefully thin today.

“Ah, but-” Souda misses the point entirely. Deflates, “You could uh. Use the extra eyes?”

“No! I’m quite aware of what I need. Thank you,” she says again. Harder this time.

“Miss Sonia-”

“Actually, Souda. Uh,” Hinata pauses. Doesn’t miss the thankful look Sonia sends his way the second he starts speaking, nor the look of unmasked betrayal Souda balks at in return. 

“Let me go with her.”

“What?” Souda squints at him, like he’s the suspicious one. Then lowers his voice, like Sonia isn’t right there, “Are you- Are you trying to snatch up my chance here??”

“It’s- Nothing like that!” He raises his hands up, ducks his head. There’s something truly amazing about how thick Souda’s skull is. 

“There’s just a few things I need to make sure we grab.” Not good enough. Souda is still staring at him like he snatched up an opportunity from him. So, lower, quieter, he adds, “And - I need you to do something anyway. Something only you can do.” It’s... Not entirely true, now. But that’s a thought Hinata isn’t prepared to deal with at the moment.

Souda eyes him with a genuine sort of suspicion he doesn’t think he’d have given even Komaeda. But he lets Hinata humor him, “Yeah?”

“Yeah. I saw a floor cleaner in the janitor’s closet downstairs. It looked a little beat up, but if we could get that fixed...” He kicks the dirt tracked floor twice, just to make his point. 

“Aw  _ man _ ,” Souda says, rotten. Sort of considers it. Hinata knows that he’s won when he tacks on, “...What kind of floor cleaner we talking?”

“A hydroscrub of some kind,” Hinata shrugs, carefully nonchalant. 

“A… pressure cleaner?” The gears turning over in his head. Hinata can visualize the calculations he’s running perfectly, both on what he’d be working on and the time he’d be missing with Sonia. “An indoor pressure cleaner, right? Shit. Okay, yeah, you know what? I think I saw a tool kit around here. I bet I could get it working?” 

Hook, line, and sinker.

“How long do you think it would take to fix it up?” Hinata asks, giving him what’s supposed to be a friendly pat on the back. Souda, of course, misses how tense and awkward it ends up being. 

“I mean- I’d have to see how beat up the thing is. What its wires are like, you know? If it’s got too much rust in it, it might be hard to get it functioning...” Souda rubs his chin, squints, “Two hours. Yeah. Actually, know what? An hour and a half, at most.”

Hinata has to force a smile onto his face. It’s not from a lack of sincerity. 

“Hey,” he says, and pretends the next line out of his mouth isn’t one of those aforementioned ‘lame’ lines Kuzuryu had been prattling on about, “If anyone can do it, it’s you.”

Souda lights up with the affirmation, apparently not seeing the same, cringy bullshit Hinata just had in it. Hinata notes this down in the back of his mind in the ‘things about Souda he should be concerned about’ file, and quietly lets him go. He’s practically sparkling with excitement now. 

Sonia trails over to him, watching as Souda all but scrambles to make his way to the lobby. He looks excited, like a child that’s just been told they have a new puppy waiting for them downstairs.

Hinata almost feels bad for what comes next.

“So.” Hinata watches him go, and continues, voice incredibly dry, “How long until he realizes we don’t have electricity to run it?”

Sonia looks startled. 

Then. 

She laughs. Hard enough to shake her shoulders, and she has to turn her head to avoid his gaze.

“Well,” she says. Enough goes unsaid between the two of them, but she smiles easier than she had before. “Shall we be off before then?” 

They leave through the side door, and make sure to prop it open on their way out. The restaurant could use some fresh air.


	2. Making Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hinata and Sonia go shopping, pick flowers, and the gang has dinner together.

The supermarket, as predicted, is emptier than it had been in the simulation.

This should go without saying, but it’s still something that manages to surprise him. It’s near barren comparatively. Things like cereal boxes and soda bottles have long since been eaten into, stale and rotten even if they’d been left untouched. 

Despite that, it’s still like the room is stuck in a time before despair. Rooted in some amount of normalcy and warmth.

A lot of the island is like that, though. Like they’d just picked up what they needed and left everything else to sit. To rot with time.

He has to wonder if they’re included in that, now.

… It also goes without saying, but Sonia is nothing short of delighted by it.

“It is sort of like a horror movie, do you think?” She calls out, breaking past him in a sprint when he holds the door for her, “The store, I mean!”

“Our life is a horror movie...” Hinata mumbles, watching the way a barn spider spins itself down from the ceiling. Then, realizing he said that  _ outloud _ , corrects with, “Yeah. I guess it kind of is like one.”

Sonia smiles at him. He knows without a doubt that it’s not hiding anything. She’s just that delighted, that  _ determined _ to be here. It’s animating, and energizing. Hopeful.

He does just as they did to the restaurant, taking a moment to carefully prop open the door so that they’re not breathing in the stale dust and dirt that float through the air with every new step. If this bothers Sonia as much as it bothers him, she makes no mention of it. It probably doesn’t. She seems a little distracted, already. 

When he huffs a breath out, a stray strand of hair that’s escaped the braid follows its path.

“Do you think we could find scissors?” He asks, offhand. Reaching up to swipe the strand back over his shoulder, so he doesn’t go cross-eyed in an attempt to study it. Sonia props her hands on her waist and takes a long, sweeping look around the room. 

“I think,” She speaks carefully, determined, “We will make do.”

Old yellowed papers scatter about the floor, the desk, hang on the walls. 

Him and Sonia take opposing sides of the store, patrolling each section line by line for anything they might find use in. Hinata is only kind of here, while he walks. It’s not something he realizes immediately, but weighs heavy on his shoulders when he notices. His mind isn’t on the lines of plastic wrapped convenience goods, nor the carefully stacked cans of soups and vegetables they might be able to get some use out of. Instead, it’s on the way Sonia’s footsteps echo about maybe seven asiles down. The way light streams into the room between cracks, and how close the cracked, plastic shelf is to collapsing.

He tilts his head at it and just sort of.. Stares at the shelf. Huh. Seemed dangerous. The crack in it would fold in under any notable weight, bringing the entire structure with it. By the looks of it, it’d been used to stock bread, and cheap pastries. Lighter objects, then...

He’d have to keep that in mind for later. An accident waiting to happen, if they weren’t careful.

Aluminum bins, moth eaten clothing, and a single dried out fountain pen. Hinata gets maybe two isles in before he actually finds something his attention deems worth his time. Souda would like the pen. Some kind of souvenir, by the looks of it. Has the word Jabberwock engraved into it, and weighs heavy in his hand when he goes to pick it up. Made of.. Sterling silver and plated gold?

Hm. It wasn't built for use. All show, no function. It wasn’t a handcrafted masterpiece, worth the price of it’s material. It was just some tacky memento, overpriced and mass produced. Made to look fancy, and inevitably fall apart with enough use.

Not that it would matter much to Souda. He wouldn’t actively use it as a pen. He pockets it for later, probably as an apology for tricking him.

(Brooms, mops, buckets, bleach, cleaner, rags, paint…)

Hinata stalls half way down the aisle, 

If the SuperMarket looked like this, what did the rest of the island look like?

They hadn’t really gotten the chance to explore, before. The last two weeks had blurred together in a haze of instability and uncertainty. His focus had been, mostly, on a desperate attempt to keep their heads above water as they came back to, stuck to the medical ward of the one cleaned Future Foundation building on the island. Between the resigned reassurances of “Yes, Souda, holy shit stop screaming, still Hinata here,” and the repetitive, belligerent squabbles of, “Togami, please, for the love of  _ god _ shut the hell up no one here is out to stab you anymore,” Hinata had sort of ended up with his hands full.

Most of the island was probably in a similar state of disrepair...

(Sonia, he notes, is about two aisles away from him. Her heels click on tile, and she says something akin to “Oh! I have found some brooms, Hinata!”)

Huh. The cabins would probably be damn near unusable. 

He had caught sight of them in passing. There had still been exactly sixteen, sorted out in two rows, overgrown with ivy and covered in moss. Perhaps that was coincidental, a dime of a chance that there was enough for the lot of them. Like the only thing that had changed was time, and build. Not that they would need sixteen. Not immediately, not all of them. 

Like seemingly so many things, he hadn’t considered it at a glance. But if buildings like the super market and restaurant had been so neglected, how would something as small as one room cottages fair?

(The sound of Sonia’s footsteps fall closer, and he reaches up to rub at pressure points. A migraine is making a desperate attempt to form, sneaking itself into his thoughts.)

A small part of him does not want to check their cabins. 

It just feels like blood money. A monkey’s paw wish. Not in the form of literal, physical currency, but their inherent survival on the backbones of others, the path razed by the sacrifice of others. That any of the resources they could gather, anything that could survive. Tainted, and cursed.

They weren’t dead though. 

Hinata has tasted death, thick on his tongue and lingering in the air. The smell has sunken into his hair, on his clothing, against the tips of his fingers. In the form of smoke and poison, of blood and tears. Every trial had ended with long showers. Water heated as hot as it could be, and desperate attempts to wash off the events of the night prior. He’d rubbed his skin raw until it shown red, and watched sand and suds follow down the water until it ran clear. Watched clear water drain for hours, mindless, lungs heavy with steam.

The night of the first trial had been the worst. The night of the fifth the longest. 

They weren’t dead, though. 

Likewise, the first day he’d been awake had been the hardest. The island, for everything wrong, still had water that ran hot. The first thing he’d done when he’d gotten the chance was shower, letting the water weigh down the hair that might not belong to him. There was no sand to clear, no blood to wash away. The needles had only left bruises on his arm for a night, a single goddamn night, and by the time he’d showered they’d disappeared to nothing on his skin. The only proof of their trials being the pure, unfiltered exhaustion that gripped his body, and the strands of hair that swam around his form in the water.

They weren’t…  _ dead _ , though.

(“Hinata?” A hand grabs his arm and he-)

Hinata stills.  
Despite the fact that he’s currently in a hoodie, that two layers of cloth lay between her touch and his skin, that he’d heard her coming, it still manages to startle him. He stares at the shelf he’s well and studied at this point, at the tag labeling some kind of off brand cola for a good four dollars. Wholey overpriced. Nothing in its place.

His shoulders fall. Looks to Sonia, finally, because she’s here, touching him, his arm, and he’s coming back to himself.

She looks concerned.

“Hinata?” Sonia asks, head tilting in a curious sort of way.

“Uh?” Is his elegant response. His mind is blank. Wiped clean by the sound of her voice, light and sincere.

“Are you okay?” Sonia asks, pulls her hand away from his shoulder. He notices, just barely, that she’s managed to gather up some supplies in her arms. More then he’s managed, in the small time he’s searched about. Two buckets hung off her brooms, bottles hanging from her hands. It looks heavy.

"It’s just. You've been staring at that spot for. Ah. Quite some time now."

“ _ Uh _ ,” He repeats, stronger. Reaches up to rub at his eyes, and ignore the way light suddenly stings, “Yeah. I’m fine? I mean, I was just.. Thinking?” Hinata scrambles to gather all his thoughts, waves a hand to dismiss hers, "We probably won't be able to use the cabins. To sleep in, I mean," Because that sounds about right. Like the most important thing to focus on, right next to everything they’d managed to scavenge together.

Sonia’s eyes light up when he mentions it, “Oh,” She says. Looks at their surroundings, “Yes, I was thinking about that earlier..” She says it like a musing, a half hearted thought. 

He reaches down to grab the bottles, because they look heavy, and she’s already carrying a lot in her hands. Dully, he notes.. Bleach and Ammonia? Alright. They were keeping these two bottles far, far away from one another.

“We could sleep in the future foundation building?” She offers, and he’s not sure if it’s to alleviate his concern, or her own.

Hinata thinks of cold, hospital walls. He thinks of the heavy locks on the doors, of the security cameras planted in the ceilings. He thinks of the pods that would be only a hallway down, or the large computer systems that had died when they’d lived. Hinata grimances, “Do you really want to, though?”

Sonia doesn’t answer him. It’s enough a response to sate him.

They would manage. They would manage just fine.

They pace the store once more, together, then a third time, for good measure. Their second time through, they figure out that some of the worse for wear clothing could work as rags, and their third, a bucket of paint. And, well. The only paint they can find is just this ugly, godawful shade of green. Kinda, emerald leaning, but darker.

“What?” Sonia says, when he mentions this thought outloud, “It is a perfectly fine color!”

“Mmm,” Hinata considers it more. Stares down at the shade, because he’s trying to figure out where the hell he’s seen it before. And-

Ah.

"... Komaeda would like this color," Hinata muses, outloud. Which meant there was probably nothing actually wrong with it, and Hinata was just being a baby about this. Cool. Good. Great. Glad to have that one sorted out.

Sonia raises an eyebrow at him. She is, in fact, polite enough to let him work though this one on his own, and does not question how abrupt and intrusive that thought had been. He rubs his head, again, ignores the pain that strikes through it,  _ again, _ “God. You know what? It’s fine. If it’s the only thing we have, then it’s the only thing we have.”

They find nothing for cutting his hair. The only scissors they find at the market are rusting at the clip, and crunch oddly when they snap together. Hinata takes one look at them and immediately decides. No. Absolutely not. He would not trust those things with paper, let alone his hair.

He does find a brush, though. It’s still in its plastic, brand new. Hinata resigns to keeping his hair.

Just a little longer.

//

The walk back is mostly silent. Sonia stops only once, to pluck some flowers off the wild and flourishing trees that invade their pathway, “It will brighten the place up,” she says, when she notices the way he eyes the red and yellow hibiscus flowers. “We ah... Need that right now, wouldn’t you say?”

And the thing is, they’re going to die at the end of the day. Water will only keep them alive for so long. The paint and chemical fumes would kill them faster. The effort seems near a waste.

But she seems so pleased with the collection she gathers, small as it may be. Resigned, he reaches over to help pluck some off with her, and they quietly sit to fill the buckets around the ammonia and bleach bottles that have been haphazardly stuck in there.

“Try picking near the end of the stem,” Hinata tells her, blankly, “There’s no way there isn’t a vase somewhere in the main building. It was made to be like.. Some kind of Banquet hall, right?”

She places a flower in her hair, and gives a hum in reply. Thunder rolls in the distance, but the sky is still bright.

And well. It turns out, he is correct. They would not be able to use the cabins to sleep in. 

He knows this, because near halfway to the hotel’s main building Hinata parts ways with Sonia. Places his own small pile of stuff on the edge of the path, because he’s not going to make her carry the things he took specifically to help.

“I’ll meet you back up there,” He assures her, “I just have to check something.”

He glances to the cabins. She seems to understand immediately, because she offers him only the barest of nods before she continues her path forward.

He checks his cabin first. 

He’s not sure why he finds himself wandering to it. None of them would really be the same. But it still sort of feels like a breach of privacy, to even start somewhere he’d never owned.

It has a hole in the roof.

It’s in the far right corner, around where the plethora of plushies he’d painstakingly collected once stood. Wild flower and ivy has replaced the stand, rooting in between the cracks in the wood. The shutters are broken. The glass has been taken by moss and dirt. The paint on the wall is cracked and flaking.

There’s no curtains on the bed, and no plastic plants piled up in the corner. The bathroom is draped in shadows, a shampoo bottle left on the floor. Dried out.

There are no cameras, and no television propped up on the wall. 

It’s just him and the stubborn, thriving wildflowers. 

He almost laughs when he sees the condition it’s in. Leans against the doorway and admires it.

Yeah, he thinks.  _ Definitely _ not in the NeoWorld Program anymore. As though he needed another reminder.

But they’re all like that. Sonia’s old cabin has a broken window. A few of Souda’s floorboards have collapsed inward. Owari’s cabin has more water damage and mold then he’s seen so far, and Kuzuryu’s has no door.

It’s just, disconnected. Impersonal. Unlivable. Hinata had seen everyone’s cabins in the NeoWorld Program. For some, he’d been invited in. Others had invaded upon their death, to investigate a murder they did not deserve. But he had seen the personal touches everyone had added to a space that had been, for all intent and purposes, interim.

And now, broken down and abandoned, they don’t feel like home anymore. 

It’s a blank slate. Something fresh. Starting over.

Wordlessly, quietly, Hinata grabs his buckets and makes his way back to his friends.

//

By the time he gets back to the restaurant, Sonia has found a bowl large enough to fill the flowers with. She’s propped it up on a table closest to the window, directly in a stream of sunlight that burns itself into the wood. The water is still and cold, and Hinata takes a moment to quietly sort some of his own flowers into the mix.

Souda, predictably, isn’t happy about being tricked.

“Bro, I rushed to fix this thing!” He tells him, practically in tears over this, “I worked so hard on this! I missed out on a chance with Miss Sonia-”

“I brought you a gift?” Hinata interrupts, holding up the pen for him to take.

Souda eyes it, momentarily. Just a bit warily. Opens his mouth to reply, then reaches over to pluck it from his hands instead, and take a second to turn it over. Hinata can see his mind working through the make of it, which parts come apart and which stick. Watches the way a build is mapped out in his mind, possibly in the same way Hinata’s had at a glance. 

“You know?” Souda back tracks, carefully, lets a laugh fester in the back of his throat, “Alright. Forgiven, Soul Bro. Just- don’t do that again,” A pause, “This is.. actually pretty neat. Where’d you get it?”

“Oh. You know,” He rubs the back of his neck, “Just kinda, came across it.”

Souda smiles wider, and spends a moment wistfully twisting the pen apart. The distraction is immediate, and successful. 

Kuzuryu paces when he’s thinking. Follows a single path in a line, like he’s trying to carve it into the wood. He gets this look on his face, scrunches up his nose and rubs at his neck.

“It’s just- Nasty,” He gestures to the mold, unwilling to step any closer to it then he has to the uncovered mess, “Just, look at this shit. It’s everywhere.“

“It ain’t like it’s not fixable,” Owari sounds tired, stretches back almost catlike, “It’s- Fixable, right?”

Hinata studies it. Tilts his head at the way the fungus has rooted itself into the wall. Does the mental calculations, near mindlessly. He has a map of the building seared into his mind, laid out on top a blueprint to an exact. Can visualize the pattern of the mold near perfectly. How the broken window would affect where the spores would root themselves, the direction and degree to which it’s spread. They stay quiet while he studies it. Though whether it’s because they actually expect an answer, or because there's nothing else to say, he’s unsure.

“There’s not enough to cause structural issues. It’s surface deep, at best,” Hinata says quietly, under his breath, “But if we don’t get rid of it, it will cause some more serious problems. Technically, we  _ should _ cover any of the door ways around here, but the rest of the building isn’t really in any better condition. It shouldn’t be too hard to kill with the ammonia though. It really was a lucky find...”

Owari just gives him an odd look at his ramble. It’s not until he’s wrist deep in dirty water and half way through the mold does he realize that he didn’t know how to solve black mold issues before coming to this island, nor should he be able to judge the structural damage of a building by glance alone. 

  
  


It unnerves him.

(He scrubs harder.)

//

He scrubs until the light filtering into the room turns marvelous hues of gold and red, and the excitement of something new turns to dedicated and concentrated work. Sonia joins him in scrubbing away at the mold when it becomes apparent that Kuzuryu will not, but that’s fine, because he and Owari go searching for clean, usable dishware instead.

The paint gets nudged off to the side for another day. They’d both forgotten, in their excitement, that they need brushes. Or rollers. Or  _ something _ . That there’s a spot in the wall that would need covered in plaster cast, if he could even find some. That the fixes didn’t have to be immediate. They don’t  _ have _ to do it today.

No one seems surprised at the news about their cabins. Really, even Hinata shouldn’t have been. No one had expected their things to manifest there, but it’s still a little disappointing to set in stone. To just... Acknowledge. Make it real.

So, Souda is assigned to drag in as many salvageable pillows and blankets he can find between the cabins and the old hotel and settle them all into a pile. They’re old. The kind of old that leaves the cloth yellowed and sides threadbared. They end up thrown in the middle of the floor, far off from any wall or pillar. A makeshift bed.

“It kinda reminds me of when the power would go out in my home, and me and the siblings would all gather in the livingroom and light a bunch of candles.” Owari says this all in one go, like she’s trying to lighten the mood. It helps, maybe, that she is sincere. “It’ll be fun. Like a lil’ sleep over, you know?” 

Souda doesn’t look entirely convinced. Sonia absolutely does. Kuzuryu is entirely indifferent. Hinata... has slept on worse.

The room still smells like mold, despite the fact that they sat and scrubbed the walls till they were all but bleached and sparkling. There’s a draft that carries in through one of the broken windows, carrying the warm weight of an oncoming storm on it. 

Hinata makes them dinner over a carefully lit fire and a pan that had already had scorch marks along the bottom. Their options are limited. Bags of rice that had been stored in bulk, and a whole lot of canned food.

He works with it. He is apparently incredibly effective at that. 

“Hinata, you didn’t tell me you could cook,” Owari drools over the dish when he slides it her way, despite the fact that it’s barebones at best.

“Uh,” he fumbles, “I mean? I never really had to, in the simulation. But I did a lot when I was younger.”

She isn’t listening to him. She is instead already stuffing her face, wolfing down the food like it’s the first thing she’s eaten in years. 

“This is exciting!” Sonia says, sincerely, holding up her dish just to observe it, “I have  _ never _ had anything like this!”

“Yeah?” Hinata places a hand on his head, feeling awkward, “Trust me, this isn’t... Like, gourmet or anything.”

“Better than I could have done...” Kuzuryu admits, poking the slice of peach that had been sloppily dumped onto his rice, “Nice job, yeah?”

Hinata studies this scene. Eyes narrow, hand still on the next plate he’d gone to grab.

“Ah.” Never mind. Hinata sees what’s happening here. “You guys are going to make me cook for you from now on, aren’t you?”

Owari grins something large, and Kuzuryu smiles into his cup.

“Well uh,” Souda rubs the back of his neck, “I don’t really know how to cook either.”

“I have never cooked a day in my life,” Sonia doesn’t seem... Proud to admit this, so Hinata cuts her some slack on that one.

“I mean. It’s  _ fine _ ,” because it is, “just, glad to have that one established. You know, being upfront about that one. Just don’t expect anything special, I guess.”

He gets a laugh out of Owari, for that one. So, it’s kind of okay.

The smart thing to do would be to start portioning out their food. Their supply was limited, dwindling. The first date of whatever supplies they’d get a mystery. Naegi had promised, begged him to believe that they wouldn’t be left for dead. But,  _ “We don’t know how long it’s going to take to sort this out with the rest of the Future Foundation, you know? So just, sit tight. I’ll keep you updated.” _

And well. There were  _ five _ of them. Five of them, and only so much rice.

He’d made extra despite this. Despite how pathetic the meal was, despite the fact that they were limited to near nothing. They were celebrating tonight.

Except. 

_ She’s going to make herself sick _ , Hinata notes, when Owari goes back for seconds. He’s mindlessly picking at his own food, the thought crossing his head like it’s just another fact in the sudden encyclopedia of knowledge he now apparently holds. She’s going to overeat, and get sick later tonight.

(He shouldn’t know that, so he decidedly does not say anything about it. But he quietly, wordlessly, moves to sit next to her instead. Taking a spot on the window ledge, like he’s looking out to the ocean instead.)

Owari also apparently realizes this fact maybe a little too late. About half way into her new dish, she begins to push around her food in an attempt to be anything but focused on it. Picks at rice clumps, tiredly. He really sort of just wants to tell her  _ You know you don’t have to eat it, right? Like, dear god, don’t force yourself to do that _ .

But it feels wrong to be so insistent, and instead he studies the dish like it’s offended him personally.

“D’you think they’d send us some chlorine, if we ask?” Owari’s question is more of a musing than a question. Surprises him in how sudden it is. She looks on to the pool, filled only with old rain water and algae. “You know, the Future Foundation people. It’s just kinda sad lookin’.”

“Maybe,” Hinata answers, almost immediately. Decides not to comment that she’d known them for two weeks, and really? She couldn’t recall any of their names? He taps his cup carefully, “Probably. It shouldn’t be hard to come by. The hotel might uh- Still have some? Somewhere? Chlorine has a long shelf life.”

Not that they’d used the pool much as a group to begin with, in the simulation. That was probably in no small part thanks to the killing game aspect of it, but also the beach not being that much farther away.

But if she wanted to fix it up, then they’d fix it up. Eventually. Unquestioningly.

Owari nods, and forces another bite down. He looks away when she does.

Kuzuryu and Sonia mutter quietly, a small distance away. Souda messes with a pack of matches he’d found, trying to get one to light in a half hearted attempt at light.

The sun sets quietly that evening. The storm rolls in on the horizon, and Hinata takes in the way salt is carried in on the breeze. 

//

Owari vomits up her food that night and Hinata pretends not to notice. It wasn’t his place to. She wouldn’t  _ want _ him to. He recalls, distinctly, the way she’d pushed him away each time he’d tried to help her steady herself when she’d woken up from the simulation. The dirty looks she’d sent Naegi for doing the same.

She’d fallen five times before she’d let  _ him _ help. He’d kept track. She’d never gotten to the point of letting Naegi help.

He ignores worry as it churns in his chest, and instead, he focuses on the way thunder rolls in the distance, and how everyone else’s breathing has settled as one.

He can’t remember the last time he’d heard rain. It never  _ rained _ in the simulation. It was almost always clear blue skies and a soft breeze, the sound of seagulls and gentle waves. A sharp juxtaposition to Monokuma’s game. 

It’s comforting, in a way. Fraught, in another. 

It masks the sound of her distant retching just enough to ignore, but not enough to leave him entirely unaware. Owari had left to hide outside, far enough away that she’d certainly come back soaked. Far enough away that he should not, in fact, be able to catch the sound of it.

He burns lines into the wall, tracing the minuet cracks and bumps through the dark

Owari hobbles quietly back into the room, making an attempt to close the door without notice. Without waking them. She doesn’t need to actively hide her footsteps. They’re light, these days. He catches the way water follows behind her, dripping like pin drops in a silent room. Her path would dry by morning. The only proof would be her hunger, and Hinata’s cognizance.

She does not cry. She settles into place next to Sonia, and lightning flashes outside the windows.

They’re together. They’re okay. They’re fine. They’re okay.

Hinata decides that storms might just be alright, and rolls over to join the rest of them in sleep. 

They’re okay.

**// Day One - End //**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They may have running water.... as a treat.


	3. Hospital

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Real Talk I'm posting this early behind my designated beta's back so if there's some wonky bits thats why but SHH It's fine I'll draw them something for it later.

Hinata wakes up not to a television broadcast, nor light shining in through the window and burning into his face. Instead, he wakes up to the cold blanket of damp morning air seeping in through broken windows, and the gentle sound of drizzle on the window. 

His guess is that it’s close to five in the morning. 

(He knows, deep down somehow, that he’s guessed correctly.)

It’s odd. He by no means has a sleep debt to pay (He’d slept for three days straight coming out of the simulation, and dozed for a fourth, until Togami’s bitching and genuine concern for the others drove him to a steadfast. They were fine. They weren’t fine but they were  _ fine _ . They slept more than he did, a fifth day, a sixth day, drowsed when they weren’t asleep. He was the first one back to his feet, the first to be questioned, the first to be cleared.) 

But he’s also never been an early riser, not without an alarm, or a stupid bear screaming in his ear. Not five in the morning early.

His sleep cycle must be off. Nothing more, nothing less.

Hinata takes a moment. Look’s at the dimly lit room, in shades of blue and purple, the other’s sleeping soundly and relaxed.

Hinata immediately decides one thing.

He needs coffee.

//

It’s Kuzuryu that wakes up just as he’s begun lathering old but usable plaster cast into a crack in the wall, taking care not to get it too messy. It’s not that he can’t clean it up, but rather that it had taken him time to find it, and he’d rather not waste what little they have.

“It’s like. Six in the morning,” Kuzuryu squints at him through a droggy, judgemental gaze, “Hinata what the fuck are you doing?” 

“Seven-Thirty Four,” Hinata corrects, without looking up, “Eh,” Is his second answer, because he feels like it’s pretty obvious what he’s doing.

He gets the hint, but doesn’t play along, “What the hell are you doing up so early?” 

“It’s like.. You know,” Hinata nods to the hole he’d previously been filling, “If I get it done now, we can paint over it later.”

“It’s like six in the fucking morning,” Kuzuryu reminds him, unimpressed and unamused.

“... Seven-Thirty Four?” Hinata repeats, because he apparently can play along. Kuzuryu goes to argue again. Opens his mouth and stares, and then closes it. Hinata can see the idea linger on his face, that maybe he wants to continue to bicker. Instead, his eyes flicker down to the cup at Hinata’s feet. Finally registers the smell in the air, and:

“Where did you find coffee?” 

“Mm,” He doesn’t answer exactly. Gestures vaguely to the kitchen and hopes Kuzuryu follows his intent. The only coffee they have on the island is carefully stored beans that have long since gone stale, stashed in thick burlap bags in the back of the kitchens store room. There’s more than enough to last them. Even if it was all four of them drinking at it, he imagines it would last well over a year.

He also suspects that he would be the only one drinking it. 

He’d boiled it in a pot on the terrace, far enough away that the noise he was making would not wake the others, but careful not to stray out from under the cracked and bare bamboo roof. It still sits there, simmering. Hinata had taken just as much care in containing the flames as he had brewing, had needed to adjust the rack he was working on to get it to the right temperature.

Hinata takes another second to nod in its general direction, “You can drink it, it’s safe.”

The offer is little more then a hospitality. It would be rude not to offer, but Kuzuryu isn’t a coffee drinker. Hinata  _ knows _ this because he’d none too subtly spent time going out of his way to wrinkle his nose at Hinata’s cup anytime he’d bothered to brew some in the simulation, like he was performing a ritualistic crime with the come and go of each new morning. 

Liquid poison, he’d say.

Kuzuryu surprises him. He comes back with a cup in hand, running his finger along the glassware with the hesitance of a man holding a shrieking infant. Hinata knows two things, in that moment. Kuzuryu is not going to like the taste, and he is going to judge  _ him _ for drinking it anyway.

He takes a sip. The swallow is slow, and creeping.

Hinata scrapes up some of the plaster as he waits.

“... This tastes like shit,” Kuzuryu squints down at his cup, like he’s almost sure he’s having a practical joke played on him, “Like, more than coffee normally tastes like shit. Are you sure it’s not bad or whatever?”

“Coffee can’t go bad,” Hinata is certain of this fact, “Too much caffeine in it. Poisonous for most things. It’s humid enough here that there was a chance of mold but- I checked. Got lucky, I guess.”

Kuzuryu is beyond stupified, “Hinata. Man. I… Are you okay?”

“... What?”

Kuzuryu stares at him. Puts his cup down and walks away. Physically turns on his heels, and walks away from him.

Whatever, he thinks as he drags the cup closer to him. More coffee for him. 

Now. The first real oddity of the day happens later in the morning, when Hinata has moved on to sanding down the splintering wooden handrails along the stairwell, and everyone has begun to gather in questionable states of consciousness. 

It goes like this.

Souda approaches him.

“So, I was thinking,” Souda says, like he’s trying a little too hard to be casual, “Why don’t we go fuck around in the Future Foundation building?”

Hinata blinks. Stalls the work he’s doing against the rail just long enough to say, “... What?” 

“You know!” Souda suddenly seems far less confident in his idea. Souda has obvious tells when he’s nervous. He shifts in his spot, avoids eye contact, rubs at the back of his neck and laughs awkwardly. He’s rolling the cap of the pen he’d received yesterday around against his thumb, a periodic and rhythm click falling in time with his nerves.

Souda also has no awareness of any of these tells. Hinata knows immediately that he’s avoiding…  _ something _ .

He also, somehow, already knows how this conversation is going to go.

He’s going to give an excuse, a lie;

"Well first, I really want to shower-"

Hinata has an answer prepared for him, "You don't need us there to shower," Because that one was a really awful lie and Hinata wasn’t even going to humor it.

Then theres another excuse, something thats not entirely a lie, but still not the root of the answer;

“There might be like.. Supplies there. Or other things we can use,” 

Hinata stares. Tilts his head, a few strands of hair following in front of his eyes. He notes, quietly, that the braid is finally beginning to come apart. Perhaps he’d fix it later, “I mean. I don’t think you’re wrong....”

Souda’s gaze finally shoots up to him, looking renewed and hopeful. Hinata thinks, there’s maybe two routes he could take. He could try and keep pressing to get the actual reason he’s suddenly so instant on going to the one building they’ve all decidedly and unspokenly avoided. But that would freak Souda out, and he doesn’t want to do that. Not really. He doesn’t actually mind exploring the building with him. But whatever Souda wants to look into, he wants to keep it a… surprise? A Secret.

He’s not sure how he knows that. Gut instinct.

Hinata goes with Option two. Lets it go. Gives him an out. He knows he’s going to take it, “You know, if you don’t want to go there alone, you could say that..?” 

Souda’s eyes light up. His grip on that pen lightens, and his shoulders fall, “Yeah?” He says, confidence falling in line with the validation and acceptance, “So, you’re willing to come?”

“Mm. Yeah,” Hinata currently has wood dust on his hands, slick with sweat, and incidentally does want a shower. He also wants to make Souda’s life just a tad bit more difficult. To make it interesting, “We should probably ask the others if they want to come. Make a trip out of it as a group.”

“Oh. Haha,” Yeah. He’s definitely got ulterior motives. Souda bites his lip as he thinks on how much of a fight this is worth, how much he really thinks the others being there will intrude on whatever his plan is. Not much, is the answer, “Yeah. I guess we could do that...”

From the kitchen, he hears Owari’s back give a series of cracks and pops with her stretch. Souda gives a defeated sigh, and slinks back, “Yeah,” He repeats, “Let me go get everyone.”

\---

The only place with electricity on the island is the Future Foundation building, housing the pods and a now defunct simulation system. It’s solar powered. Has three generators attached to it, a main one and two back-up. Bulky things, built into the side of the building and bigger then he is twice over. It’s more than enough to power the three story building for weeks if something were to happen.

He supposed they hadn’t exactly been joking about keeping them safe. Despite this, he can’t find more than scraps of gratitude for this act. He doesn’t linger on it. Not today.

“I’m telling you guys, air conditioning was the best thing mankind has invented since like- I don’t know, The Modern Automobile??” Souda practically sobs, flopping forward to meet the wall. Hinata can see the way his forhead bounces off it with the force of his throw, “... Ow,”

“Be careful, your IQ is already low enough as it is,” Kuzuryu mumbles, snorts, shuffles past him.

“Hey-” Souda narrows his eyes at him, but it gets a laugh out of Sonia. So after a second of consideration, he seems to let it go. Hinata doesn’t miss his discomfort despite this.

Hinata’s first order of business is a shower. Though Souda had been using it as an excuse, it feels like it’s been days since he’s had one. He takes the time to carefully pull up the braid into a bun with a series of rubber-bands he’d found tucked away in the first office over. They catch and pull at clumps of strands, and when he gazes in the mirror he can’t help but contemplate how ridiculous he looks.

The alternative is taking the time to wash his hair. He already knows how long it takes to maintain. He’d made the mistake of washing through it consistently his first week out of the simulation, and between the hours it took to dry and the knots and tangles he found each time he went back to it.. It worth the effort. Not today. It’s the least appealing thing he could be doing right now, and probably healthier not to wash it every day anyway.

Probably. Something rooted deep inside of him is telling him that.

Of course. The third option is to finally chop it off.

The showers are located in their old hospital rooms, and Hinata holds absolute certainty that he could find a blade if he went digging. Unlike the rest of the island, the equipement here was new. The scalpels would be sharp enough to make a smooth cut. He imagines he could stomach that now. That with some effort, he could have it done within thirty minutes. Forty-Five, if he wants it to look nice.

He holds a few loose strands between his fingers and gazes at himself in the mirror. He could, he thinks, almost look like he did in the simulation.

Just almost.

His reflection gazes back, tired and somber.

Hinata, once again, does not chop his hair. He’s beginning to think he should stop fooling himself into thinking that he will.

Hinata’s second order of business, after he’s cleaned up and carefully not spent more than 25 minutes under the blistering water, is to explore.

He’s been assigned the hospital wing. In no due part to being the first one to claim the showers, but he suspects no one else wanted the job. They’d all been here already. Had spent their recovery in these beds, been locked in these rooms until there was no doubt in their stability. 

Hinata hadn’t been. He’d dragged himself out of bed, exhausted and fighting, just to make sure that one of them would be on the other side of that door. To be certain that they wouldn’t be tricked. Fooled into being forgotten, and trapped. Logically, it made sense that they wouldn’t be. Why they’d go through the trouble of rehabilitating them only to let them starve locked away behind hospital walls would be counterproductive.

There were also windows connected to each room. Carefully sealed, unopenable. But breakable, if needed.

Hadn’t stopped him from feeling trapped. Anxious. For his safety and for his friends.

It wasn’t Naegi he didn’t trust. He doesn’t think the man could lie to save his life.

He’s not sure who he doesn’t trust.

He’s really tempted to break the locks on the doors. The one thing stopping him from following through on that impulse is a lack of equipment.

He takes care to gather some basic first aid where he can find it. A pack of bandages here, disinfectant there. Nothing intense, but things he figures they might just need if they’re not careful. He packs it carefully in the first cardboard box he can find, takes the blankets it’s originally holding for good measure. What he does not grab he takes stock of, making mental notes of what medicine is where, and what supplies they have the least of.

(And after some consideration, carefully tucks a pack of needles and suture against the side of the box. You know. Just in case.)

He meets up with Kuzuryu first.

“Well, I didn’t find shit on the third floor. It looked like.. half finished? I think it was going to be storage,” Kuzuryu is leaning against the wall, when he finds him, “I hope you got lucky.”

“... I. I was exploring a hospital,” Hinata says, like that should be its own explanation. He’s not really sure if he needs.. Luck, to find supplies they can use in a mostly stocked hospital. Kuzuryu looks at him unimpressed and unamused, obviously not thinking the same way, so Hinata instead holds up the box like a gift and an offering.

Kuzuryu goes to reply. Seems frustrated but curious. However Sonia rounds the corner next. 

Though she’s empty handed, she’s exuberant, and near wired, “The food in the kitchen is still fresh!” She says, “Though, it is running low, there is a bit! How do you feel about eggs?” She grins something massive and teethy.

“You know what? They’re certainly protein. Not rice and peaches. I love ‘em,” Kuzuryu doesn’t sound nearly as enthused, but the smile that slides onto his face is anything but barebone.

Souda is third. He sort of.. Appears, just as Hinata is carefully piling his stuff next to the doorway to save his slowly aching arms.

“Nothing really on the ground floor that we didn’t already know,” Souda admits, “All the computers and stuff function though. There was like, some extra supplies in the backroom? You know, in case we ever gotta repair this place. But nothing we can use right now.”

“You’d think that with such a big organization, they’d be a little more well stocked…” Kuzuryu scoffs, rolls his eyes.

“I mean. They did sort of kidnap us from the future foundation. Kind of,” Hinata rubs at his head, because it feels like he should remember that a little better then he does. Right now, it’s hazey. Like something’s trapped itself in the back of his mind. He’s leaning heavily on what Kirigiri told him, and not knowing exacts  _ bothers _ him.

This doesn’t seem to bother the others nearly as much, so he decidedly does not mention it.

Owari is the final one to show, and she rounds the corner with speed he didn’t know she currently contained. 

“Guys! You gotta check this out,” Owari is breathless, arm against the wall and form doubled over. But her face is bright, excited, “I found our stuff. Well, like. Not  _ our _ stuff. But old us! You know-”

“Ultimate despairs stuff?”

“Yeah!” She misses the discomfort behind Souda’s words, all energy and no perception.

Their things have been carefully placed in two stacked plastic bins, tucked away in the first store room on the first floor. Each box has been labelled by hand writing he knows Togami’s, half hearted and in the corner.

It’s something he hadn’t considered, but they had woken up in hospital gowns. Kirigiri had thrown him a hoodie and some jeans when he’d woken up, gaze stoic, something  _ knowing  _ and aware hidden under her mask. He’d been to out of it to decypher it at the time, but thinking on it he’s rather glad for the new cloths.

Most of their old clothing must be here. He wonders, for a moment, what else they could have even wanted to bring.

“They must have forgotten it was here, between everything else going on,” Hinata points out, as he carefully shifts the first bin to the ground. It’s not too heavy, but Owari is looking away from him as he does so for her, glaring at the ground with enough force to burn lines into it. It’s momentary bitterness, passing and quick. 

“Or they just didn’t give a shit,” Is what Kuzuryu’s bemusedly concludes.

They each take time to grab the carefully labeled bags and spill them across the floor in a sloppy pile. 

“Y’know, for a prison break they were real prepared,” Owari turns her backpack (Dirty, black and red) over in her hand a few times, spinning like she’s checking for something on it. 

“... Or it was planned from the start,” Hinata corrects, blankly. That sounds right. He’s not sure why it does, or why he says it with such certainty. But some amount of planning would make sense for something like this.

“Hinata! Found yours,” Souda tosses his bag, and Hinata raises his hand to catch it without really registering that he’s done it. Souda’s own bag (A green tool bag with old oil stains on it. He imagines it mostly contains cloths) rests in his lap, and the man wastes little time ripping onto it. 

He holds his bag in his hand and frowns.

The bag (Not big, little more than a laptop bag really) has his name on it. Not Kamukura’s, but his own, written in neat permanent marker and hand writing that is  _ not _ his own. The penmanship is.. impressive. Almost decorative? If someone had told him that it had been printed out mechanically, he’d have believed it.

Or, written by an Ultimate Calligrapher in a failed attempt to humor himself.

Hinata stares at it for a second. He considers what could possibly be in the contents of the thing. It’s hard to imagine Kamukura having.. Really, possessions of any kind. It’s still hard to imagine that he existed, at times.

He contemplates opening it, and digging through Kamukura’s things there and then. He’s not sure what story he’d get from it. He’s not sure he wants to know.

He drops it like he’s been burned, grimace on his face and eyes darting away from it. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches the look Kuzuryu gives him, and carefully does not say anything about. 

He’s grateful for that, at least.

“Hey, Hinata, check this out-” Souda takes the fact that he’s looking blankly in his general direction as interest in what he’s found, and holds up some gaudy, bright earrings with big yellow gems in them. Topaz? “Apparently I have style!” 

“Well. Your fashion sense has always been unique,” His tone is flat. His hands, trembling, are tucked into his jeans. 

Souda stares at him, hand whips up to point in his direction, “Is that- Is that an insult?! That sounds like an insult-”

He tilts his head, “No. It’s serious. Your style is very memorable.”

“... Still sounds like an insult,” Is he, yeah. Souda sulks, but quickly recovers when he pulls out a yellow jumpsuit, “I’ve missed you,” He tells it, and Hinata stops paying attention to him about there.

Sonia smiles into her bag, but she’s fussing with the fabric of a dress that looks far more extravagant than Hinata generally associates with her. She says nothing about it. Simply zips her bag back up, and shifts it off to the side.

He follows the same favor he was given, and doesn’t ask.

Kuzuryu fumbles with an eyepatch he’d pulled from his bag. The material is nice, and the design is elegant. A dragon. His fingers trace the cloth, like he’s considering throwing it on instead of the substitute he’d been using. Instead, he puts it away with a simple huff.

Owari, on the hand, scatters her clothing around her uncaring, muttering things like, “No, nah. Not happening. Eh, alright you can stay,” As she goes. Most of it was already crumpled and wrinkled up, but he sees the slightest stages of organization in her piles. 

Hinata, with a more leveled head and calmed spirit, reaches down to pick up his bag again. He doesn’t open it. Doesn’t evaluate it. Simply hugs it close to his chest, and acknowledges its existence as a whole.

“So uh,” Owari stares in the bin, at the remaining bags that line the base, “What do we do with everyone else's stuff?”

She interrupts the silent lull they’d placed themselves into when she asks, reaches in to grab a blue duffle bag from the bunch like she’s trying, too casually, to observe it.

“What?” Kuzuryu looks up from the bag he’s still sorting through, though doesn’t seem nearly as distracted as he wants to let on.

“I mean,” Owari shifts. She looks.. A little nervous, but it’s hidden well behind an uncaring and relaxed mask. She always wears that one well, “We can’t just like.. Leave it here? Can we?”

“I mean. Of course we fucking can, it’s not our shit. I wouldn’t want someone going through my thing,” Kuzuryu isn’t getting it. Hinata does. She’s very specifically dropped Nidai’s duffle bag in her crossed legs. She hasn’t opened it, not yet. But her hand lingers against it, like she’s waiting for permission. Like she doesn’t want to be the odd one out, over this.

“Owari,” Sonia is the one to speak, “No one will judge you if you want to grab his things.”

Silence.

Realization snaps through Kuzuryu. He opens his mouth to immediately try and fix what he said before thinking better of it. Owari traces a finger along the zipper, face falling just a bit more, “You know. Yeah. I kind of want to grab Peko’s things,” Kuzuryu copies her, fingers fussing with the fraying end of his bag.

Owari grins.

“Well. If none of ya’ll are gonna judge me for grabbin’ coaches things, we’re definitely not gonna judge you for grabbin’ your girlfriends things,” Owari doesn’t wait, throws open the bag and snatches up the first jacket she can find. It’s laughably large on her, hanging off her form like a blanket, but she looks pleased as can be when she wraps herself up in it.

“She’s  _ not- _ ” Kuzuryu’s head shoots up, “You know what? Shut the fuck up.”

He’s a little more careful with Pekoyama’s bag (Black. A drawstring) Has nothing to prove as he digs through it. He doesn’t pull anything out, doesn’t scramble to add to his pile. However, his shoulders fall a bit, gaze hazes and softens. He only has a moment like this, before he snaps it shut again, and moves to place it next to his bag.

“What?” He says, when he notices Hinata looking. Then more defensive, “She doesn’t- She doesn’t have a lot of things, okay?”

Sonia doesn’t ask for permission. She reaches over to grab Tanaka’s things (He knows this without looking, because sigils are painted around it) with confidence and certainty. Eyes suddenly alight and grip something fierce. Souda goes to open his mouth, possibly….  _ Definitely _ to complain. However, Kuzuryu does Hinata’s job for him, reaching up to smack the back of his head lightly before he can speak. Souda looks annoyed, gets the hint, but still manages an expression of absolute heartbreak as Sonia shifts a familiar and well worn purple scarf out of the bag. 

She sits like that for a minute. Runs her fingers across rips and tears, thumbs at the end of it. It’s in far worse condition than it had been in the simulation. Would need a few repairs against the worst off bits. That doesn’t stop her from following through as she did in the simulation upon his death, and wrapping the scarf around her neck twice over. She hides her face in the fabric, closes her eyes and smiles.

Souda looks a bit awkward, and continues to fumble with putting in the earrings he didn’t know he had.

“I’m going to go visit them,” Sonia decides, ripping herself out of remembrance, “I refuse to allow it to be an elephant in our room.”

(You know? Close enough, Hinata thinks.)

“No one was going to let it become…” Kuzuryu starts, stalls. His fingers come up to ping at the bridge of his nose, not at Sonia’s words, but his own, “I wanted to go see her. That’s the entire reason we came here, right?”

No one had said as much, but no one argues. 

“It would be nice,” Owari mumbles, fumbling with the sleeve of her new track jacket, “They didn’t let me see ‘em when I asked. You know? So it would be nice to check up on him.”

(Hinata’s eyes narrow. Something bitter churns in his chest that he tries to ignore.)

“Alright!” Souda says it with a bit too much force, something akin to eager on his tongue, “Shit. Yeah! Let’s go see them,” Hinata studies him. He doesn’t seem to notice. He’s already gathering his bag, scooping it up in his arms like he wants to bolt immediately.

“Yeah..” Sonia follows suit, “It will be... Nice.”

(He doesn’t miss the hesitance to her step, falling so close behind Souda. He doesn’t mention it.)

“Ye

(Owari carefully does not need help pulling herself up off the ground, and Hinata carefully does not let his hand linger in her direction in case she falls. She doesn’t fall, doesn’t notice, and no damage is done.)

“You coming?” Kuzuryu asks, genuine and concerned, when he notices Hinata hasn’t yet risen from his spot.

“Uh. Yeah. I’m just gonna…” He nods down to the rest of the bags, “So nothing happens to them.”

“ _ Fuck,  _ I forgot- You’re right-” Kuzuryu steps back into the room, “Do you uh.. need help putting those away, or like-” 

Hinata raises his hand and shakes his head, “Go ahead. I’ll catch up.”

Kuzuryu looks like he wants to argue with him. To make a point in sitting and helping him put everything back up. But it’s between helping him clean up their mess, and going to see Pekoyama again, and Hinata knows there’s no contest. Kuzuryu gives him an appreciative nod, lingers a moment longer in the doorway.

Then he’s gone, and Hinata is alone in the store room.

He takes care in putting everyone's things back. Not close to how they found it, but neater, to condense it down to one box. He makes note of whose things are where. Mioda has the biggest bag, rests at the bottom of the bin stuffed to the point of near breaking. Saionji’s has been packed neatly, in a bag with small, sashiko flowers on it. It had been apart from Koizumi’s hand bag when they’d found it, but it feels wrong to leave them separate. So he doesn’t.

He works like this, taking time to detail out what goes where. Almost finds amusement in placing like bags with like bags. And then - 

Hinata catches green, out of the corner of his eye.

The bag is neat, and small. Scrunched up in furthest from the rest of the bags like it’s trying not to take too much space. He almost misses it, only catches it because of the familiar, too familiar jacket poking out of it.

Komaeda Nagito’s name is written on it’s tag in artful, well practiced lettering. 

When Hinata reaches down to grab it, it’s a thoughtless gesture. Automatic, and robotic. He scoops it up in his hands, lets his finger linger against the zipper. Stops. Doesn’t open it.

It holds more weight to it then he’s expecting, especially for its size. Heavy enough in his arms for him to want to know what’s in it.

He considers taking it, or at least digging through it.

It would be weird, he thinks. It wasn’t that they were like.. Close. Not Owari and Nidai close, and certainly not Pekoyama and Kuzuryu close. He’d spent the simulation attempting to pick the guy apart, figuring him out. It had always bothered him that he didn’t  _ get _ him. He knew why he behaved like he did, understood his motives and his luck. But Komaeda was still an enigma to him, something that sat in the back of his mind unspoken and taunting.

He feels a bit sour. 

What the hell would he even do with it? It wasn’t like it would get forgotten here. He was willing to leave everyone else's things without question. But Komaeda’s bag sits in his hand, weighs on him like a secret, and he’s  _ tempted _ to take it.

He has impulse control. He carefully places the bag back in the bin. Gets up to leave.

He looks back to the bag, tucked at the top of the bin.

Quietly begins to leave.

(… He takes the damn bag and hides it in his own. It barely fits, but it’s out of sight, and out of mind.)

//

The room the NeoWorld Program is built to house a labyrinth of large, stocky computers. The passageways it creates are disorderly. Electronic. If he’s not careful, he’ll trip over some of the wires that should otherwise be covered on the ground. He, in fact, needs to reach over and stop Souda from doing so twice. The room is dry, but hot, and the air is stale, and the only light in the room is that from the machines itself.

It’s almost eerie, the way computer’s loom over their heads in any which direction. The rest of the island had been abandoned and forgotten, sure. But walking into the NeoWorld program room, there’s this mechanical buzz that rings in the air. Subtle enough to miss in chaos, but overwhelming in silence. 

In a way, it’s like the machines are taunting them. Reminding them that right now, they are not the ones that belong here. 

(Guilt lingers in the back of his mind. He ignores it.)

That is nothing short of a silly thought. The machines simply exist, fulfilling the singular purpose they were meant to. 

Hinata fusses with the unkempt braid to keep the sweat off his neck.

They’ve separated off as a group at the pods, Kuzuryu none too subtly rushing over to Pekoyama’s pod, Sonia more carefully to Tanaka’s. Owari is still looking around the room with a feral, bewildered look to her eyes. This is not her forte, and she’s looking at the systems with the same amount of distrust one would level at a man cornering them with a knife.

She slowly, eventually, makes her way over to Nidai’s pod instead of fixating on it. However tense her form is, it melts away as she settles into sitting on top of the lid.

“Hey coach,” He hears her whisper, and she’s just close enough that he can catch it, “Missed ya.”

He doesn’t really have anyone in particular to visit, so he takes the time to pass by each pod in the room. Paces the outer edges of the room twice in silence, and the third time stalls against each pod to offer them some thought.

Everyone deserves to be in someones mind, he thinks, like it’s something he has to muse on. 

It’s the fourth time around that Hinata actively notices that instead of visiting with someone, Souda has carefully taken a seat next to an empty pod. There’s a tool kit next to him (Where he got it, Hinata is unsure, but thinks it might has to do with their bags.) The door to it is propped open. Beyond that, he’s taken a panel off the back of the machine and is messing with.. Something inside of it. Mumbling and engrossed. His fingers are carefully carting through wires as to not mess them around, or pull at them, and his body is stiff beyond the select movement.

Hinata shifts to kneel at an angle that he too can get a full glimpse of the inner workings of the machine, and this close he can catch what Souda is mumbling to himself. Sound nothing short of scrutinized, things along the lines of “What the  _ fuck? _ Why does this connect to the  _ frame _ ?” And “Who set this thing up…” 

Oh. That’s what he’s doing.

Hinata finally speaks up, “You won’t mess up-” He doesn’t get the chance to finish his statement.

“Fuck!” Souda jumps, hand hitting the top of the machine with enough force that Hinata hears it, “Hinata! Hey- When did. You get here?”

“.. I’ve been here?” Hinata answers, tilts his head. Souda laughs and it’s not… sincere. So Hinata corrects with, “Not long. Just got here.”

“Eh heh. Give a guy a warning next time, Soul Bro?”

“Uh.. Sorry,” He’s not really sure what, if anything, he did wrong here. But it still feels wrong not to apologize for that, especially with the way Souda rubs at the back of his hand. Out of the corner of his eye, Hinata catches the smallest amount of blood from the surface cut, smearing against his skin, “Oh. Shit. Your hand is..”

“Aw, this is nothing,” Souda is quick to reassure him, “Once I crushed my hand under a bike I was working on and couldn’t use it for weeks. That sucked. So the cut is like… Nothing,” He waves him off. Hinata still feels kind of bad about it, but not really enough to push it, “What were you saying?”

Hinata hesitates. It’s not that he’s second guessing himself. He’s just taking the chance to take in the added variables. Around the room, a variety of lights blink in shades of blue, green, and yellow. He knows, somehow, that blue used to be the color that overrun the room. However, the towers behind most of the pods have turned that ugly yellow, as though sick as their friends are. The towers behind the empty pods are turned off and defunct. 

The lights to the mainframe, on the other hand, glow bright blue. Though the monitors are down, the main computer is still very much online and alive.

He rubs the side of his face, and releases a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

Enough time has passed that Souda is looking at him oddly. Beginning to get restless. Hinata forces himself to stop considering, and to just speak.

He decides to paraphrase.

“You can pull it apart if you need to. The pods are connected to the individual towers. Individual tower to main computer,” Hinata points in a line as he speaks, finger tracing the way wires connect each system unit by unit, “The tower on the pod you’re looking through is turned off. If you disconnect the pod, it won’t do anything to the other systems. And- The NeoWorld Program was made to allow people to enter at separate times if needed. So it would be.. Uh. Inconvenient. If they couldn’t connect and disconnect them separately.”

Souda is giving him a  _ look _ . Uncomfortable is the polite word that comes to mind, but apprehensive is probably the correct one. Hinata thinks over how he sounds with distinct clarity and awareness, and drops his hands to still against his side, “The mainframe powers the rest of the computers. But they store their own memory and just sort of.. Connect,” he finishes up. The explanation seems beyond insufficient, but Souda has caught onto what he’s saying. Eyes flicker about to outline the path the wires take, the build of the room.

Souda doesn’t mention his nerves, “.. You really think it’s safe, huh?”

Hinata nods, “I wouldn’t mess with the tower yet,” If at all, “But the pods are.. Okay.”

Souda still seems hesitant. His eyes glaze over the pod, at the wires and hole he’d originally had his hand in.

“You will not hurt them,” Hinata finally says what he thinks is actually on Souda’s mind, not so subtly hidden concern and uncertainty tucked, “That’s your concern, right?”

Souda nods slowly, “I don’t wanna like- fuck it up. When I’m trying to help. Y’know?” Souda speaks in a musing, “Wait- Shit! I wasn’t suppose to say that,” Souda’s hand goes up to pull at a beanie that isn’t there, and instead ends up gripping his hair into clumps. 

“Ah,” Hinata blinks, and it feels like a rubber band has snapped back into place. Head feels clearer, more focused, “That’s what this is about?”

“Nnn,” Souda grips harder, before finally relaxing, “Well. Yeah. I guess there’s no point in hiding it now, huh?” He laughs, props his elbows on his legs, his face in his hands. He rubs at his eyes twice, like he’s getting rid of some kind of burn.

“Why didn’t you just say so..?”

Souda looks as though he’s debating on his honesty. Hinata doesn’t blame him, but it’s a little inconvenient if he’s being entirely honest, “I don’t know. We’re not even on our feet. I didn’t wanna like, drag everyone else into this when we have other things to focus on.”

“I think waking everyone else up is a priority just under surviving.”

Souda nods to his words, “But we just.. Started. We just got here,” His gaze flickers up. He’s not frustrated anymore. His resolve shows on his face, sharp as a knife and ready to dig into a new and overwhelming project. He, with sincerity, thinks he can do something with this, “But we’re here, and they’re not. And it’s like.. I have to do something. I can do  _ something _ .”

And Hinata understands that. Understands where Souda is coming from. His gaze flickers over the machine again. He doesn’t think the key to waking everyone up is hidden here. The pods are little more than life support, keeping barely breathing bodies alive and artificially stable. They’re medical equipment. Won’t do anything on their own, won’t wake the dead.

But if they don’t know about the equipment they’re using, then there’s no point. There’s nothing they can do besides wait. 

Some hollow, tired part of him only wishes he could do more.

“I think we can get away with taking time to figure these things out. It could be helpful,” Hinata eventually says, “To know how these pods are set up. How they work. If we can get blueprints on them...” Hinata looks at Souda expectantly, wordlessly, “You know. In a way everyone understands. Layman's blueprints.”

Souda’s expression breaks immediately. Muttering a tired, near uncertain, “Yeah?” and then a more confident, “Yeah. Yeah- I think that might be a good idea. Completely do-able! Uh-” He looks over the machine, “Probably. I don’t know. This thing is a mess. I can’t even begin to tell you what starts where at a glance.” 

He laughs. This one has a bit of sincerity behind it.

“We need to find out how long these pods will support them for. The program was originally set up for fifty days, so that would be the obvious answer. But that would be…” Inconvenient. Disastrous.

Souda makes it easy on him, “Yeah. I got you, loud and clear,” He shifts his body back into the machine, only somewhat less careful about the way he’s picking through the inner workings of it. There’s a bit more fervent behind his work, the confidence of an ultimate slipping into their specialty, “ I can figure that out real quick,” He doesn’t say that with the same amount of confidence as his form shows, but Hinata trusts his judgement nonetheless. 

He steps back to let Souda work.

“Hey uh,” Souda stalls to peer out at him, “Can you like.. Not tell the others about this?” He gestures to the pod he’s working through in a wide, singular sweep, but struggles to match his gaze. Like he’s asking something massive of Hinata. Like this is something Hinata can’t do, “I don’t want them to like.. You know. Ask questions about it. It would suck if nothing came out of this, you know?”

“Well. A first good step to that would be not working on it with other people in the room,” Hinata points out, more bemused then anything, “But yeah. I won’t bring it up if you don’t.”

Souda grins, “Cool! Sweet. Okay. See,  _ this _ is why  _ you’re _ my Soul Bro.”

It wouldn’t stay a secret for long. He doesn’t bother pointing that out.

Instead, there’s a computer monitor in the middle of the room. The only one with a desk and a keyboard. The station looks like it was once an overused mess. A few stains in the woodworks of the desk, some scratches against the edges where the chair bumped into it too hard. 

Hinata occupies himself with it as Souda works. Sort of. He’s hesitant to go digging through the files in the system. He’s not sure why he’s so hesitant; The system to the NeoWorld Program are alive, but the program itself is busted. Corrupt. Junko’s A.I. had fucked it up first, they’d worsened it when they’d pulled themselves out of the system. The thing would be rendered unusable. Fixable, but it was perhaps for the best that he let certain sleeping dogs lie.

He’s not immediately sure what he wants out of this, actually. But his fingers linger on the keyboard and mouse, and his gaze studies the password input like it will personally whisper the systems secrets into his ear.

Life, he knows, isn’t that simple. 

Discomfort creeps into the back of his mind, sneaking in through the cracks of uncertainty. Like he has some knowledge tucked away inside of him that’s scratching at his mind.

He thinks. What does he want out of this.

What does he need to grab.

He stalls. Blinks. Stares.

“... Actually,” The discomfort is becoming overwhelming, cutting into his gut like a well placed blade, “Before you get into that. Uh. Stick with me on this.”

Souda doesn’t immediately react to him. When he does, it’s little more then a simple, confused, “Huh?”

If he were.. If he were a mastermind, where would he hide a USB drive containing an A.I. Super Worm. Where would he have hid it…

Souda props himself up on his arms.

Hinata slowly steps up onto the desk. Tilts his gaze up, to the intricate line of computer monitors hiding basic, universal USB slots. There, carefully hidden behind a curtain of wires and tucked into the port closest to the mainframe, is a black and white flashdrive. 

Just out of sight.

Just out of reach.

“Souda,” Hinata says, and it comes off more like a command then he intends, “Come help me with this.”

  
  


//

Owari is teaching Sonia and Kuzuryu how to make flower crowns.

He’s not sure when it came up. They’d gotten back to the main building, bounty in hand, and had immediately gotten back to work. By then, the plaster had dried, and he’d gotten to work painting over the rest of the wall. 

And when he looked over, Owari was leaning over them. Fumbling with the wilting stems.

"Naw, its like," Owari's voice is soft, but Hinata just barely manages to catch it from across the room, "You gotta kinda. Tie the stems together," She leans over to, assumedly, show Sonia exactly what she's talking about. Sonia's expression is carefully concentrate, intense and passionate in a way that he generally associates with preventing a murder. Not braiding flowers together. 

She's not getting it though.

"So, sort of like…" 

"No- fucking, like this," Kuzuryu leans over to shove his flowers in her face, far too confident in something he supposedly just picked up on, "You like.. Wrap it. Then pull the stem backwards. Make sure it supports it."

"Oh!" Sonia's gaze lights up, "I see!" She makes an attempt to follow his lead, grin threatening to slip across her face, “This is exciting! I have never gotten the chance to do anything like it before.”

“Really? That sucks,” Owari props her legs up, adds to her chain, “My lil’sis use to make ‘em for me all the time. We had like? This abandoned plot of land near our house we’d go to. Lot’s’a pretty weed’s and flowers grew along the edge of it,” She rubs the back of her neck, “I stopped takin’ her there when she cut her foot open on some glass. But it was nice while it lasted, ya know?”

Kuzyryu hums in acknowledgement. Sonia nods along, more focus on her project then the story.

Hinata has decidedly not joined them. Not because he already knows how to make flower crowns (He does) or because it seems a little.. Pointless (Boring.) Rather, because he’s near finished with painting over this wall, and would rather it get done sooner than later. If he puts it off, the fumes won’t air out by the time they’re ready to sleep. He doesn’t want to get anyone sick, even if they’ve long since inhaled things they shouldn’t have.

Souda's reasons for opting out are far less worthwhile.

"Its just-" Souda stalls, "Kinda girly, you know?"

" … Kuzuryu is  _ Yakuza _ ," Hinata’s paint brush stalls, "What exactly are you trying to prove here?"

Souda doesn’t answer him. He simply grips the sleeve of his jumpsuit and stares at the ground like it will answer for him. Hinata… doesn’t push it. Instead, he quietly reaches over to hand Souda a paintbrush as well, “Work in four foot sections,” He tells him, dull tone heavy on his tongue, “From top to bottom.”

“Hinata,” He says, “I’ve painted a wall before.”

“.. You’re probably the only one here who has.”

Himself included. 

They’ve piled their stuff carefully near their designated spots, some more obvious then others. Owari had simply threw her bags on top of her pillow, had immediately gotten to work elsewhere. Kuzuryu placing his against the side of the nearest support, propping it up with care. Souda is wearing his tool kit, long since having forgotten the bag it was in. Sonia, despite the heat, still hasn’t taken off the scarf. She tucks her face into it, lips hiding against the cloth.

Hinata’s small pile remains untouched, shoved under the foot of his blankets save for the flashdrive. It’s carefully tucked in his pocket, burning a hole at the base.

Souda is curious about it

"So what are you going to do with it?" Souda asks him, handing him a paint brush as he does. 

"I dunno. Destroy it, probably? Definitely," Is his first reply, as he carefully paints over the same spot thrice. They have no primer, no base for the paint to sit on. Luckily, the color under the green is a light pastel. Easy to paint over, less chance of it bleeding through.

“You gonna show the others?”

“... It would only be fair,” He tries to ignore the way his shoulders tense. Behind him, he hears Sonia laugh something soft. Beside him, Souda’s painting has slowed, and gaze is focused on him and him alone.

The wall would need another layer of paint before the night ends. But they would finish just fine. The paint would dry, hiding the mess the mold and rot left under it. The damage would never be gone, but it was fixed.

“You know. I think I found some whiskey earlier in the backroom,” Souda muses, like he’s trying to bring it up subtly, “Do you think…”

“.. It might be worth grabbing.”

Souda nods, and goes back to filling his spot with color.

A breeze sneaks in through the open windows. He hears Sonia laugh behind him.

"I look.. so fucking stupid," Kuzuryu presses his face into his hands and groans, but makes no effort to actually remove the crown from his head. He glances back long enough to study the three of them. Owari has placed two crowns on his head, taking miraculous care in poking the bulky tropical flowers into something manageable. Sonia’s face is lit up in a grin, her own sloppy, passable crown on her head. Kuzuryu’s face is red, light against his cheeks.

Hinata decidedly interjects with, "Hey Kuzuryu? You look great.”

“.. Wow. Thanks Hinata,” His reply is dry, but there might just be a touch of sincerity buried in it. 

Hinata give him a thumbs up.

  
  


//

The bottle of whiskey Souda had found is covered in a layer of dirt, label worn away with age. Hinata can tell that, even before the island was abandoned, it was an older bottle. Some expensive brand only Kuzuryu and Sonia would have been able to afford, before the world ended. 

It’s only half filled now. Souda takes care to wipe the dirt off the lip of the bottle, using the base of an already dirtied sleeve to attempt to polish the glass.

Kuzuryu is nothing short of judgemental, of course.

“Souda, I really hope you have a good reason for that.”

Owari laughs, “Is it not enough to want to party?” She asks, reaching over to try and take it from him. Souda pulls it back defensively in one sharp motion, prompting an, “Aw. Come on, let me try it.”

Hinata ignores them, and instead brings up the flashdrive. Holds it up to the light between two fingers so everyone can see, “You’re uh. You’re gonna want it for this.”

“Oh  _ fuck _ ,” Kuzuryu shoots up, nearly tipping his chair over as he does, “Is that-”

“It’s her. Was her,” Hinata, “She probably had her AI deleted off the system entirely, so right now it’s just symbolic but-”

The room is.. Quiet. The only sound is the waves, carrying into the room like an unwanted and uninvited intruder. Owari slowly pulls herself back into her seat, properly, and Sonia eyes the USB like he just pulled out a gun.

“Probably?” Kuzuryu echo the word back like Hinata just shot him, which doesn’t make him feel good.

“... It’s possible that her AI just got  _ copied _ into the NeoWorld Program, and that she’s still.  _ Here _ . On this thing. I.. Do not want to check,” Hinata’s entire form feels heavy under the weight of that possibility. That there’s even a sliver of a change that she still gets to live, that they had to die, “So. Alcohol.”

“So. What are we going to do with it?” Sonia doesn’t sound nervous when she asks. She sounds, well. Suspicious, mostly. Uncertain, sure. But not nervous. She’s studying the thing like she expects it to get up and bolt out of his hand, to lunge at them and start biting. 

He twirls it between his fingers.

“Kill it?” Kuzuryu’s shoulders are stiff when he suggests it, “Obviously we’re going to kill  _ her _ . She should already be dead.”

“Like I said. It’s only a small possibility, so…”

“Yeah, no. The obvious solution is to fucking destory the thing. Like, I’m not the crazy one for suggesting that, right? That’s the best fucking option. You know what? Actually, yeah, give me that,” he immediately reaches over to grab the bottle from Souda, more successful than Owari in his attempt. He takes the time to fill the first cup up to the brim and carefully nudge it Hinata’s way, “Yeah. Okay. Fuck it up then.”

“That was the plan,” Hinata looks away from them. The USB drive feels heavier than he knows it is, weighing like lead in his hand. He waits, patient, for Kuzuryu to finish filling the cups out around the table. His own is notedly shallow. Owari holds her’s out until he finishes filling it to the rip.

He waits for a cue. All eyes on him, expectant and silent.

To say he destroys it would be wrong.

Hinata executes the flashdrive. He’s not entitled sure how. He starts gripping, and keeps going until he feels plastic crush and metal bend under his grip. And then  _ keeps going _ , until the pieces dig into flesh and cut into skin, and the circuit board crunches in a small click.

When he lets go, the remains crumble to the table. Like dust.

He stares down at it. 

Everyone stares down at it. 

“And just like that,” He says, takes his glass carefully in his free hand, “She’s gone.”

He raises his glass in a silent cheer. Like watching domino’s fall, the rest of the group follows. There’s no joy, in the unanimous cheer. It’s acknowledgement at best, silent, chilling.

It feels melodramatic like that. They sit together at the table, in a circle, looking down at plastic shards and broken motherboard pieces. 

The ocean breeze is near overwhelming. He tastes salt and paint fumes on his tongue, and considers that this feels real.

Kuzuryu ducks his head down, “You know, this depressing shit actually kind of sucks.”

(He doesn’t miss the way he’s scratching at the eye patch, with deep intent and purpose. Hinata will have to ask him about it, later)

“Yeah…” Owari pokes at her glass, already empty. She doesn’t move for another, “I expected to feel a lot better about watchin’ you fuck that thing up. But now I just kinda feel hollow inside. Is that normal?”

“Man. Yeah,” Souda runs a hand through back through his hair to remove the strands from his face, takes a drink from his glass without flinching, “This sucks. It’s like everytime we get rid of her, something about her sticks.”

“Hm,” Is all Hinata feels obligated to say.

Sonia spikes her glass down in two even gulps. Fill, repeat twice. Not a shutter wracks through her body, nor a grimace on her face. She forcefully slams the cup down on the broken bits and pieces on the table.

“Why are you sad? We won. We are the winners! We won. To! Winning!” She says this with purpose, a flare of determination she needs to convince even herself. 

Hinata moves to finally take a seat, to carefully curl up against it. Owari doesn’t fight the grin that crosses her face with Sonia’s words, breathing out in something close to a laugh, “Ya’know? I take it back. Hell yeah lil’queen, we fought the power!” She shoots her cup up, a bit of alcohol spilling down her arm, “Aw-  _ No _ , don’t do that.”

Kuzuryu, who’s not only stayed mostly silent, but spent the time glaring fierce at his glance, takes a single sip of it. It seems like he’s trying to ignore the full body shiver that wracks through his body with it, and just kind of force it down his throat. 

“You know you don’t have to drink,” Hinata points out, like that isn’t something thats obvious.

“Oh, thank god,” Kuzuryu gives in on the suggestion, shoving his glass forward with force, “Yeah, I’m tapping out this is disgusting.”

Owari snorts into her cup. 

Souda reaches over to poke at one of the pieces, “You know. This one looks.. Kinda like Japan?” He says, and tilts his head.

Kuzuryu leans on him, “Huh. Neat.”

In the corner of the room, he spies a spider hanging dead in the web it created. It, too, would become dust soon. 

Owari reaches over to snatch Kuzuryu’s cup, and Sonia goes for another glass. 

Hinata closes his eyes and quietly sips at his whiskey. 

He thinks, like this, he might just be happy.

//

Owari bolts up just as he’s beginning to drift off once more. It breaks him from the spell of hypnagogia, rooting him back to reality in a second’s time.

She vomits again. There is no rain to cover up the sound of it, nor the sound of her none too subtle cussing. She doesn’t cry. Her voice is heavy with frustration, but she does not cry. He thinks he hears her throw a stone at the empty pool, hears the way it echo’s about and drops into a pool of water.

She does not, in fact, cry.

Hinata lies to himself again. Chalks it up to the alcohol, like he’s sure she’s doing. He lingers in the restless, blank state of awareness and only rolls back over to sleep when she pulls herself back into the mainroom. Her feet drag. She takes extra care to close the door without a sound, far more careful then she’d been leaving the room.

She curls up next to Sonia and sighs. It rattles her entire form, and she takes an extra blanket.

_ She’s alive _ , Hinata reassures himself. 

//

Hinata has a nightmare that night.

He’s in a room. No windows, blank stone walls. The door he’s been looking at for exactly two hours and thirty three minutes is made of steel, locked both a traditional heavy duty deadbolt and not one, but two stealth locks. He’s sitting on a bed, patient and proper, legs crossed at the ankle.

He is in a medical gown. His head hurts, and he’s hyper aware of the way his bandaging sticks to his head with blood and sweat. Stitches itch, and pain flicks in and out like a candlelight. There. Gone. There again. Gone again. If he focuses long enough, he can make it sink away entirely. 

But it is dark, and it is quiet, and he is alone. He predicts he will be alone for another four hours. He is not sure what is the better option, yet. To be alone, or to be surrounded by those

He.

… Hates?

Hm.

He has memorized the pattern on the floor. There’s a hole in the wall, just a few inches above the ground, where bugs manage to sneak their way into the room. He tracks them when they come in, memorizes the path they take. Watch as they explore the room for a morsel of food, a purpose of being. 

They won’t find anything. It is just him and the bugs. 

.

It is 2:33 AM. Hinata is alone, and Hinata is bored.


	4. Passion Fruit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it rains.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning. Eating disorder. 
> 
> That is all.

Hinata eases awake. Does not jolt, does not jump. Simply stares at the ceiling with half lidded eyes, and is reminded of the hair that sticks to his skin in the night’s humidity. 

People breath around him, disordered and inharmonious. He hears the sound of the waves in the distance, crashing into the beach in time. The rustle of palm trees, of the old wooden wind chime that sneaks in through the cracked, open door. 

It is quiet, but Hinata Hajime is not alone. He feels alone. The overwhelming weight of isolation rests on his chest like a firm lead ball, like ice nails that are ripping into the skin of his shoulders. Loneliness seeps in through the cuts, flowing through his veins like an untamed infection.

But Hinata Hajime is not alone. He is surrounded, can practically feel Souda’s breath on his skin. Feels the way a little bit of Sonia’s hair tickles his arm, and how Kuzuryu’s foot touches the back of his leg.

So Hinata rolls over, closes his eyes, and listens to the sounds of breathing. Of the ocean. Of an old, bamboo wind chime. 

What a weird fucking dream, he thinks. 

==

Sleep doesn’t come easy to him again, is the thing.

His relationship with sleep has always been finicky at best, but since coming out of the simulation, it’s only gotten worse. 

He recalls, distinctly, sitting at the kitchen table on their side of the hospital wing. It had been a little after he woke up. Long enough that Future Foundation wasn’t breathing directly down his neck, but soon enough where everything was still overwhelming. Simultaneous exhaustion and anxiety curling together in his stomach, creating a cocktail of nausea and uncertainty. He didn’t have anything to occupy himself. No coffee to stir, no clock to stare at. He’d simply stare down to his folded hands, attempt to calm a nerve he did not know he had.

The fact that it was so easy to do only seemed to worsen his awareness of it. That there had been nothing there, if he willed it hard enough. At times, he’d go so far as to allow the anxiety to creep and take him. It was nice, to know he could still feel it. 

“Can’t sleep?” Naegi had asked. He’d looked nervous at the time. Like he wasn’t entirely sure whether or not Hinata was truly safe to approach. It wasn’t...  _ unjustified  _ . Hinata knew that. Yet it still stung. 

“It was like that when we came out of the school killing game. I can’t tell you how long it took me to be able to sleep properly, haha...” 

He still doesn’t. Naegi has bags under his eyes, Hinata has heard him pacing about at odd hours of the night. The sort of hours where Hinata should have been asleep as well, but instead was busying himself with wandering where he shouldn’t. No one ever seemed to notice. He knows they'd care, if they knew.

Hinata had not mentioned knowing this. Naegi’s trauma was not his business. He wonders, momentarily, if it should have been. He wonders, even more hastily, if it was odd that he didn’t care at all.

He doesn’t linger on it.

They’d sat like that together. Not just that night, but a few others. Eventually, Naegi must have felt awkward watching him stare at nothing, because he’d brought in a book to slide Hinata’s way. 

Hinata didn’t have the heart to tell him he had no interest in it. Had only touched it when Naegi was there, because it felt impolite to do otherwise. He still has the book, half finished, stashed with his belongings.

(He has to wonder how well Kamukura slept. He does not remember. He tries to imagine that it’s as perfect as everything else he supposedly did, but that somehow feels wrong. He somehow knows it’s wrong.)

The best Hinata has slept since coming out of the simulation had been over the last few days, as normalcy had begun to settle. It’s ironic. He’s slept easier on the ground, in a pile of blankets and clothing, than he had in new, inarguably softer hospital beds.

If tonight is anything to go by, it’s a spell that has been ruined.

Warm sunlight cuts through the hues of blue and purple, breaking up the melancholy of a restless, early haze.

Hinata watches yet another sun rise over the ocean. It’s predictable, and dull.

Back on this bullshit.

//

Sonia wakes up early the next morning.

“I wish to learn how to cook!” She tells him, with such determination and intensity in her tone that for a moment, he’s left momentarily stunned. The sway of a princess is nothing to be laughed at, he supposed, and the hope in her eyes is enough to squash any further possible argument. 

It’s not like he had anything better to do with his morning.

(Well. He did, technically speaking. But it’s nothing he can’t do after. Nothing he’d put above a request.)

“Uh.” Hinata says, intelligent, and points to the still heating pot of water he’s working on. “Coffee,” he tells her, despite the fact he’s been up for a good few hours now.

“... Right.” She tilts her head, smiles something understanding. “But after! You will teach me how to cook.”

And, well. Who is he to argue that?

Hinata sits on the counter only when there’s a cup of coffee half drank in his hand, a few cooking utensils and a bag of rice spread out around him. He’s no less awake, but all the more prepared, and she’s gripping the spatula hard enough to strain the muscles in her hands. Watching him. Expectant.

“So,” he starts, because he needs to make sure, “you’ve really never cooked before?”

“I... have never had a reason to,” she admits, a small smile on her face. “I have always had someone to cook for me..." Considerate. A hum.

“Well.” He feels awkward in this position. Teaching and directing her. “We aren’t cooking it properly or anything. Our meals have been pretty bootleg, all things considered.”

“Right,” Sonia nods along.

“And honestly, cooking it in a rice cooker would probably be easier.” He misses the one he had at home. It wasn’t anything special, but he’d stashed it away in his room to cook while he studied. It had gotten the job done, even if it wasn’t top of the line. Looking back on it, the rice was kind of shitty. But he’d been able to make ramen in the model he’d owned, which was convenient.

Sonia is looking at him oddly. It snaps him back to attention,

“Uh. Sorry,” he says, and runs his hands through his hair. “The rice.”

The first batch ends up burnt. The second, undercooked. The third one sticks to the pan in a disgusting mix of char and mush, effectively ruining the pan from any further use without a good soak. It’s almost impressive how badly the batches come out, considering they’re both standing right there, both watching it cook.

He wakes up the other three in the mad rush to dump the rice from the pot before it can do any further damage to their noses or eyes. 

On his way back in, he notices that the flowers on the ends of the table are dying. The ends of the petals are drying out. Souda looks at him through bleary eyes and a sluggish haze. 

“Hey soulbro no offense but,” he starts, laughs like he’s a little unsure of what he’s about to say, “aren’t you supposed to be perfect at everything?”

Hinata does not glare at him, because it’s too early, and he’s too tired to care. He  _ does  _ make a point to mention, in passing, “It was not my cooking. It was hers.”

They have one more attempt at cooking before Sonia actually allows him to show her through example. The main issue with this, however, is even he is unsure of how to explain what he is doing. Talent comes naturally to him now. What he’s doing comes naturally to him now. He gets half way into cooking before his words trail off into a mumble, his focus falling entirely on the way the pineapple slices sizzle in the pan in front of him, before he stops explaining his actions and simply  _ cooks  _ .

He is  _ almost  _ unaware of the look Sonia is giving him. Only almost.

“I’m sorry,” he tells her, sincerely, as he slides over a plate in her direction,

“It... is  _ fine  _ .” She bites on her nail, considering the plate of food in front of her. “Even I did not think I would mess up rice so  _ easily  _ .”

“Cooking is a learned skill. It’s easy to misjudge, if you don’t have a frame of reference.” The words don’t feel like his own. He feels like a ghost in his own body, puppeteering it through strings alone. He coughs. Composes himself. 

“We can uh.. Continue to cook together? If you want. Maybe it will help?”

She composes herself. Continues to look down at the fresh plate of food.

“Hinata-san,” she says, and it’s with purpose, “That sounds like a fantastic idea.”

Breakfast that morning is late, but everyone is careful not to mention it.

//

He’s looking around the room with Sonia when Souda bustles in, arms filled with boxes and eyes filled with glee. They’re attempting to figure out the best way to place furniture. Something akin to;

“What if we sort of… split it down the middle?” She tilts her head, raises her hands in a way he knows he’d seen Koizumi utilize on more than one occasion. “You know. Living area on one side, sleeping on another?”

“... It doesn’t have to be perfect,” he tells her, bemused. “It’s probably better to leave it stacked, for now anyway,” despite something inside of him telling him that was far from the most effective way to organize the room. Really, he can practically visualize how they should sort everything. The best way to give everyone a little room to themselves, while still maintaining some sense of order. He’s not going to mention it though. Certainly not going to sit down and map out blueprints.

Regardless. Sonia is offended by the thought. 

“Cleanliness increases morale! We should not live like beasts!” 

“I mean I guess…”

And that's around the time Souda comes in, arms filled with boxes and- 

“Hey, hey! Guess what I found!” Each of Souda’s words are pronounced with a bounce, with a dance and a grin, and neither he nor Sonia have the chance to answer before he drops the small pile of board games and cards onto the one table they’ve set up properly.

“... What?” Hinata squints. Sonia says nothing, beyond moving her own belongings with a mask of a polite smile and a step backward.

“Come on, it’s entertainment!” Souda says, “We can’t just sit here and work all the time.”

Hinata blinks. Sonia, now having collected herself, takes a look. He can see her taking stock, gasps something like “Oh! Uno!” Sonia picks up one of the boxes, water damaged on the side but otherwise fine. 

“This is wonderful! Where did you find them?”

“There was uh- A stock of them. In the closet downstairs.” Souda rubs the back of his neck, beams. “I was goin’ through it to try and find more parts, you know? Start to clean it out.”

“It makes sense,” Hinata mumbles, more to himself than the two of them. “It was the arcade…”

What Hinata expects is for Souda to be drooling over the compliments Sonia has thrown his way. And for a moment, Souda IS as  _ predictably  _ wide eyed and eager as he expects him to be. A grin that splits his face from ear to ear, and a blush on his cheeks.

But then there’s a moment where their eyes meet. And Souda’s gaze snaps to attention, “Oh- hey!” 

And he’s being grabbed by the arm and pulled away.

“Whas’ goin’ on?” He hears Owari say, as she returns from the kitchen.

//

Hinata walks Souda to the Future Foundation building around the time the sun hits a high point in the sky.

“It’s just sort of weird being there alone, ya know?” Souda muses, rubs the back of his neck, “I uh. Was hopin’ you’d stay there with me.”

Hinata... Still has better things to do with his time. He flips through the list in his head (Scavenge for food, more food that they won’t risk running out of. Start cleaning the lobby, start looking around the other buildings, sort out a list of supplies they need and-)

But Souda is looking at him with anxious, hopeful eyes and smile on his face, hiding nerves under casualty. 

It’s not like they don’t have time, he thinks. Finding ways to wake the others up should be a priority. The others are also working on things. It’s fine. He can... find something to do there.

“Uh,” Hinata blinks, “Yeah. ‘Course.”

Souda’s grin falls to something more natural. More pleased. He reaches over to nudge Hinata with his shoulder, “That’s the spirit!” Like it wasn’t obvious how on edge he was. Like Hinata couldn’t read him.

Maybe he doesn’t realize that he can.

Kuzuryu is already there when they arrive. He’d disappeared a little after lunch time, and somehow Hinata is not surprised that this is where he’d turned up. He’s sitting on the edge of Pekoyama’s pod, and it’s obvious that they’re interrupting something or another, because Kuzuryu turns and looks at them like a deer in the headlights. He thinks if he looks close enough, there might be tears. That he might have heard  _ “I’m sorry.” _

“Don’t mind us,” Hinata covers for him, steps on Souda’s toes before he can say anything he shouldn’t. “We’ll leave you alone.”

Kuzuryu takes a breath in to steady himself. Then he nods, and turns his attention back to the pod.

And it’s not a lie, really. Pekoyama’s pod is almost exactly opposite of the one Souda has been working out of. It’s nearly half dismantled by now, something he notices only when Souda pops open the top with a kick to the lid.

“I bet I can have it done by tomorrow,” Souda tells him. “I’ve uh. Never been too good with blueprints, you know? It’s just easier to sort of... Do. So it’s taking me some time to map it out.” He grips at his hair while he thinks, narrows his eyes at the machine. His own silence is apparently long enough to spike another concern, because he immediately follows up with, “But it’s not like I  _ can’t-  _ ”

“I think you can,” Hinata assures, hurriedly. “It’s your talent.”

Souda doesn’t falter. “Right…” he says, easily.

They part from there. Souda takes his spot that he’s so distinctly claimed as his own, tools and papers scattered about at random, parts sprawled out any which way. Hinata might just be able to imagine his work shop like this. Can see cars, pushed up by ramps. Imagines the wheels popped off. He can hear the way heavy machinery rings in his ear. Taste oil on his lips, and feels the burn of smoke in his eyes.

It feels a little too real. Like a memory, just out of reach.

He lets the thought pass him without input.

If Hinata looks hard enough, he sees the beginning stages of an organizational system. Tools sprawled out by his left hand, papers and pens to the right. He catches bite marks on the wires and pens. He thinks he might remember Souda chewing the ends of his pencils apart. 

Hinata walks over to the computer monitors and takes a seat in the worn leather desk chair. Most of the monitors are attached to the wall, dimmed, black, and looming over him. However, on the desk there’s a laptop. Future Foundation’s emblem is carved into the back of it, and it’s hooked and wired to the main system.

He’s not sure why, entirely. But he opens the laptop without thinking about it.

“So, check this out,” Souda says, but it’s somewhat thoughtless. A mumble. Hinata spares him a glance. 

“I think the pods are actually built into the floor. Like, some of the machinery needed space, so they built under. Funky, right?”

"What are you two doing, anyway?" Kuzuryu calls back, sounding none too impressed.

"Nothing! Nothing," Souda calls back.

Hinata stares at him, incredulous, and turns his attention back to the program.

Here’s the thing about the NeoWorld Program.

It runs in two separate parts. 

He’s not sure how he knows this, but the information lingers in his mind like a weight. Information, as ingrained as his very DNA. The main system is the very room they’re standing in. It’s large, near overwhelmingly so, surrounding them like a maze and heating the room like a sauna. 

But the second system is smaller. Not made to run the system itself, so much as built into it. There’s code stacked on code, the system broken down and dysfunctional. When he looks at it in parts, which he spends time doing, he thinks he might be able to read it for what it is. C++...? Python and html for the imagery, maybe…

When he tries to think about it harder, it goes back to looking more like an error message stacked on a text editor.

Hinata already feels a headache coming with force. He quietly snaps the laptop shut again.

//

He spends about ten minutes staring off into space before he notices Kuzuryu’s curiosity get the better of him. Watches him peer around to Souda, beginning to prod into things. Twenty before Souda gives him a nudge to pull Kuzuryu out of the room.

“So. Why is he taking apart the pods?” Kuzuryu asks the moment they’re outside the doorway.

Hinata doesn’t answer him on that one. Not entirely. He sort of shrugs and looks on ahead. 

“I’m not supposed to say. He thinks he’s being subtle about it.”

“Cool,” he says, sounding a little miffed. “Awesome.”

The good thing about working with Kuzuryu, he thinks, is there’s no need to talk. It’s a nice change of pace, where Owari seems to chatter mindlessly, and Souda seems to think that every moment not filled with conversation is a moment wasted. 

So, they walk together in silence, for a while. Kuzuryu would kick a stone every now and again. Hinata would stall and take in the sight of the ocean.

It’s comfortable. It’s easy. It’s almost solace. 

“Here,” Hinata says on occasion, pulling him off the worn out path. “This way.”

Yet that solace can’t last forever, and eventually the comfort cracks. And it’s only when they've been walking long enough that the silence has gone from amiable to overbearing does Kuzuryu start talking.

"When Pekoyama, my sister, and I were younger, we used to have a beach house, right? Middle of nowhere sort of place," Kuzuryu considers what he wants to explain, arms crossed tight over his chest. "It was technically one of our safe houses, but the folks stayed there a lot just to get away. We would always sneak out to shoot the shit over by the ocean. You know.  _ Get away  _ from the folks. Especially when they got loud."

Hinata nods. Gaze flickers back to him.

"... We would usually, uh. Try hitting seagulls with stones," Kuzuryu admits, after a moment of hesitance. He must notice the look Hinata gives him, because he immediately follows up with, "I- I don't know man. We were just shitty kids. Sis always thought building sea castles was for wusses, and Peko just usually did whatever the fuck we did."

Despite having a desire in mind, he has no destination. Really, he isn’t even entirely sure where to go. He’s following a path he can see through the overgrowth, one that nature has taken back, but not erased. Like a scar left on otherwise untarnished leather.

If Kuzuryu has realized this, he does not mention it.

“I don’t think Peko was ever into it, though. It’s kind of obvious looking back on it? But my Sis. She always managed to hit at least one.” Kuzuryu rubs the back of his neck. “Had the aim of a sniper. She was always sort of ruthless like that.” 

Hinata has the gall to snort.

"... What?" 

"I'm... thinking about what Tanaka would say if he heard that." He decides honesty is his best bet here. Kuzuryu looks at him, stunned. He continues, "You know. ‘You've made an enemy of the Tanaka empire! For your sins you will pay!’ Something like that?" 

" _ Fuck  _ . He's never allowed to learn about this.”

Hinata smiles wider.

“Hinata. You’re not allowed to tell him about that,” he repeats, harder this time. He actually looks worried about it. Hinata decides to spare him the thought. 

“... I’m going to be honest,” Hinata kicks at the ground, “I’ve never been to the ocean before... Uh. You know. This.”

“What?” Kuzuryu’s eyebrows raise, “Never?”

“Not that I can remember. My family didn’t do stuff like that, you know?”

Kuzuryu opens his mouth to respond. Pauses. Closes his mouth. 

“Yeah,” he finally agrees. “I think I know what you mean.”

//

There’d been a fruit tree along the path. 

Passionfruit. Edible. 

“The red ones are ripe. Look for ones that are wrinkled,” Hinata had mumbled, reaching over to pick one. “They’re better for desserts and drinks, but I’m sure we can make something out of it.” 

Kuzuryu had hardly been as impressed.

"This looks... disgusting," Kuzuryu’d said, poking at it with his pinky. "You're sure it's safe to eat?"

Hinata nods.

"Great..."

“You’ll like it,” he says. “It’s sweet.” Supposedly. He’s not sure how he’d known that. He hadn’t missed the way Kuzuryu’s eyes had lit up at the thought, nor how he’d gotten a little more eager to pluck through the tree to pick some.

They’d spent a while clearing through the vine. Hinata had carefully tied up the bottom of his hoodie to create a bag, and Kuzuryu had plucked off the ugliest ones he could find.

“You know,” Hinata had said, “I bet we can find more than this.” 

He’d been sure of it. He’d ran through things that could be growing on the island. Passionfruit, Malay Apples, Coconuts and Seaweed. Maybe they could fish, if they could find the right supplies.

Kuzuryu had nodded, “Maybe.”

They tuck the fruit into one of the newly emptied boxes in the kitchen, ignoring Owari’s curious gaze as they pass her.

“Don’t eat through it,” he tells her blankly.

“ _ Aw _ ,” she replies, sincerely.

It’s not exactly sunset when he decides to turn his focus to the lobby. It’s later in the day, where the worst of the heat has passed, and it doesn’t feel nearly as stifling as it does at the height of the day’s sun.

The lobbby has the same issues as the restaurant did. Same mold problem. Same water damage. It’s an echo of what the upstairs used to be, save for the parts they’ve ransacked and the supplies they’ve taken. The arcade machines no longer have power, a bit of grass growing at their legs. A cash register behind the counter still has a few american dollars stashed inside of it, something he discovers after hitting it just the right way.

He recalls, vividly, how the lobby had looked after Komaeda blew it up. It’s not nearly as bad, he thinks. At least they could fix this.

Quietly, he reaches up and begins to strip the wall.

==

The thing is, the board games do come in handy.

It starts raining again. He sort of figured it would, but the others seem surprised by it.

“It sure rains a lot here,” Souda muses, head tipped back to the window.

“Well  _ duh _ ,” Owari rolls her eyes and reaches over to grab some of his rice. “It’s a tropical island. Even  _ I  _ know it rains a whole lot at these places.”

“Yeah but it’s like... Every other day now, you know?” 

“Tropical island,” Owari reminds him again, louder this time. He hears her reach over to playfully smack his back. He yelps like she just punched him with brass knuckles on.

“We’re just in the wet session,” Hinata interrupts without looking up from the deck of cards he’s unpacking. “It shouldn’t last for more than the month...”

“Huh,” Souda sounds moderately impressed by this fact. “Wet season huh?”

“We had wet sessions in Japan.” Kuzuryu sounds less impressed. “How the fuck did you miss that memo?”

“What??” Souda sits up, runs his hands back through his hair and grips, “I don’t know! It just rains more sometimes! I don’t question the weather!”

“So. The rules of War are easy,” Hinata explains, shuffling the deck between his hands. The motion is smooth, something he has not practiced but still comes naturally to him. 

“We split up the deck evenly. In a play, everyone draws their cards at once. Highest card wins,” he shuffles a second time, then a third. “If two players have a matched card, then you call war. The two players with matching cards place down six cards on each side, then draw a new card. Winner takes all the cards on the field.”

Owari and Souda, impatient, had busied themselves with a game of checkers, though Souda keeps eyeing their group curiously, and Owari does not seem entirely into it.

“It’s no poker, that’s for sure…” Kuzuryu mumbles. He’s looking a little judgmentally at the pile of cards slowly building at his feet.

“But it’s in good fun!” Sonia looks a little more eager, quick to flick each new card into her hand. “We never played games like this back in my country.”

“No shit,” Kuzuryu sounds entirely disheartened.

“You don’t have to play,” Hinata points out. “It’s a two player game. One less person would make it easier.”

“And what the fuck am I going to do? Stare off into space for an hour? Sorry man, we can’t all pull that off,” 

Hinata’s fingers do  _ not  _ still against the deck when he says that. He continues to deal, only deal, like he hadn’t said anything at all.

The deck doesn’t split evenly, between the three of them. He shuffles the last card into his deck, and then shuffles the deck again for good measure.

They each throw out a card. He hears a roar of thunder above them.

Kuzuryu throws in a King. Sonia throws down a Queen. Hinata throws out an Ace. 

“Beginners luck,” Hinata mumbles, taking the hand.

Kuzuryu throws in a 5. Sonia a 6. Hinata flips his card to reveal the Joker.

“... Huh,” Hinata blinks down at the card. “Uh. I thought I removed both of the Joker cards, sorry.”

“You want to redraw?” 

“It’s... fine. I’ll take it as a loss.” Hinata is nonplussed by this fact. 

He shifts the card out of the deck.

They throw again.

//

When he goes in to cook for the night, he notices half the fruit gone.

Owari doesn’t seem nearly as eager to eat. She sits, curled up against the window, glaring out at something he doesn’t think he can see.

He makes note of it, but… he doesn’t say anything to her.

//

Not immediately. 

//

He’s about to roll over again for the night when he hears vomiting again.

Hinata stares up at the ceiling for a moment. Between the brief flashes of lightning, he’s been able to make out a variety of shapes in the grains of the wood. It’s been his latest form of entertainment when he’s laying about and doing nothing. A focus, to draw his mind to a standstill. Otherwise, he focuses on too much. Focuses on the fact that there’s a tree too close to the building that scratches the wall of the building, on the fact that there’s a hole that needs to be patched on the kitchen side of the room. The fact that the rain has gone from soothing, to pelting. From a comfort, to an annoyance.

She vomits again.

He’s trying to focus on the other three people in the room. The fact that they’re asleep, soundly. He knows, not from looking, that Sonia does not sleep elegantly. She tosses and turns, and kicks her blankets off. He knows that Souda snores only slightly, that Kuzuryu has a tendency to sleep in cycles. He wakes up every few hours, sits up, checks the time, and rolls over to go back to sleep.

He’s sleeping soundly, now. He has his head tucked against Souda’s shoulder, at an awkward angle that’s going to leave a crick in his neck. He knows that sometimes, they wake up in an entanglement of limbs and blankets. That they never really mention it, but it’s something Hinata has seen twice now to verify. 

Kuzuryu is drooling.

She vomits again.

Hinata sits up this time. There’s a moment, just a moment, where he considers flopping back down and ignoring it. He’s staring down at his hands, debating on if it’s worth the fight of talking to her. If she’ll take this well. His hands are gripping his sheets, he notices, tight enough to turn his knuckles white. But registering that is distant. Like he’s not in his own body. He’s watching something happen that he cannot control, disconnected and uncomfortable.

This bothers him, he realizes. It’s an emotion that comes in a wave, strong, takes him despite the otherwise firm grip he’s kept on his self control. This  _ bothers  _ him. It’s going to keep bothering him if he doesn’t say something. If he doesn’t do something besides listening and waiting and hoping and he’s so tired of  _ hoping _ .

He really hates hope.

“Are you doing this to yourself, Owari?” 

Owari practically jumps out of her skin when he speaks, looking at him with a wild, skittish gaze. He knows why. Knows that he approached quickly, that his footsteps were hidden by the sound of the rain, by the fact that her focus is everywhere else. He’s aware of how quietly he breaths now, how little he moves. That instinctively, he knows which floorboards will creak, which are missing nails, and which are no longer leveled.

He knows he’s a ghost now. This shouldn’t surprise her. 

“What the fuck Hinata?” she asks, wild eyed. “When the hell did you get here?”

“...” He doesn’t answer her question. Instead, his gaze travels between her and the railing. Like he’s making a point of it. Like he just expects her to pick up on this.

“Vomiting,” he says, instead. “Are you forcing yourself to vomit.”

“What?” Like she didn’t imagine he’d be bold enough to ask, despite the fact that he just had. “I’m not!” It’s not a lie she’s confident in. It makes it easier to contest.

He tilts his head. Back. Forth. Thinks on it, despite the fact that he already knows it’s false.

“No,” he says, calmly. “That’s wrong.”

She stares at him. He sees the internal battle in her head. Is this important enough to fight him on. Does she want to stand her ground on this? Is it a fight worth attempting to lose, with a win so unworthy.

“Repeated vomiting wears away at the teeth. It can cause cavities, corrosion, and wear away at enamel that lines the teeth,” he mumbles, dazed. “Eventually, the teeth yellow, becoming brittle and weak. They begin to chip and malform, changing in shape and length over time.”

The words are monotonous. He’s not thinking about what he’s saying. In the moment, he’s echoing the information he’s being fed. Not thinking Not Feeling Not thinking about UltimatePsychiatristUltim_ateCouncilerUltimat _**_eCoachUltimateNurseUltimate_** _-_

“Hinata-”

“These effects are irreversible. Though cavities can be filled, the worn away enamel will never regenerate. This will leave the person with sensitivity issues to cold and hot foods, as it’s left the inner part of the tooth exposed. Cheeks swell, and sores are left on the skin of the mouth as stomach acid deteriorates and weakens it-”

“- _ You  _ said I was  _ better _ ,” She finally just snaps at him, and it’s an accusation. “Why do I still feel like- Like. I don’t know. Like  _ shit _ , Hinata? I feel like I got kicked in the gut time’n’time again.”

He’s quiet. The air is still. He’s gazing down at her, figure shadowing over hers. He acknowledges, for the smallest of moments, how much larger he appears. His hair falls around him in chaotic clumps and strands, sweeping the edges of the ground.

It’s hard to care.

The light from the moon, bare as it is, flickers out behind another stormcloud. 

“I said you weren’t at risk of poisoning yourself anymore when you ate.” Hinata tilts his head  _ again _ . He registers how blank his tone falls. It’s not enough to get him to fix it. “That doesn’t make you  _ better _ . It doesn’t mean you can gouge yourself full again. It means you won’t die when you eat.”

She flinches. Opens her mouth to say something. Closes it. 

“Well.” She laughs, “Yeah. That would suck, wouldn’t it?”

He barely, just barely, notices the way she’s looking him over. Her gaze is shaky and misplaced. Rapid-fire attempts to look around him instead of at him, like she’s looking for an exit. Because she wants to get away from him. Like an animal that’s been cornered.

(Ultimate Analysis registers her rapid breathing it as frustrationuncertaityconfusionanxietyfearterror-? Terror.)

She’s scared of him.

It’s maybe that, that’s enough to bring him back in. The creeping, lingering feeling of regret that crawls down his spine at the unhinged fear that crosses her face. He feels an echo of sorrow that he’s the cause for it. Not enough to regret it. Not right now. But enough to know it’s there, rippling against the level, still waters of the rest of his mind. Enough to know that he won’t want to linger on it in the morning.

Slowly. Uncertainly. He sinks down to her level, so he’s not looking down at her. It feels patronizing to do that, so he matches her gaze eye to eye. He’s suddenly hyper-aware of the way his hair curtains around him on the ground, the odd angles it sticks at and the weight of it against his scalp. It’s a comfort and a curse, blocking out the rest of the world when it falls in front of his face.

He’s able to watch her as she collects herself like this. Her breathing goes from rapid, stuttered breaths to even, leveled puffs. Her gaze fizzles; From alarmed and scared, to dull and stoney. Their gazes meet and she-

She lunges at him.

He knows she's going to do it before she jumps (Her heels dig into the ground, figure pulls back and tenses. She’s going to launch, she’s going to try and hurt him it’s not going to-) But it still manages to throw him. He scrambles in an attempt, a bare attempt, to catch her before she can push him back entirely. Knows where to put his hands to bring her to a halt, still ends up falling sprawled out on his ass. He yanks his own head back like that, sits on his hair and forces his head up. 

“Owari?!” He looks at her, wide eyed, “What the  _ fuck _ ??”

“You’re talking weird again!!” She snaps at him, all teeth and bite, “I said I’d kick your ass if you started talking weird, and you’re talkin’ all weird! So let go of me and let me punch you!!”

“I’m not-” His gaze flickers, at first from his hands, then to her face. “I’m not… Stop.  _ Stop  _ . Hold  _ on  _ !”

She stops.

She holds.

She listens.

He reaches over to level her. Places his hands on her arms to keep her steady. She slowly eases back onto her heels, matching his level with a crouch. They sit for a minute. Then another, just staring at one another as they both attempt to dig for something to say. He reviews their conversation in the back of his mind, word for word like he’s reading down a script. Something crawls down his spine, but he doesn’t have enough time to focus on what it could be.

Owari is the one to break the silence, “Hinata Hajime, I  _ am  _ going to kick your ass.” Her tone is weaker, however, and she doesn’t immediately leap for it. Gives him a chance to rest his hand on his head in a bemused, disorientated quiet... Musing. 

“... If I let you punch me will you  _ listen  _ to me?” is what he eventually decides on, blinking away. “Because- I mean, I don’t really  _ want  _ to be punched but-”

“No!” She pauses. Looks him up and down “Well. Maybe. I’m still considering it.”

He leaves himself open for her. Extends his arms out as if to say ‘ _ Alright. Come hit me then. _ ’

She raises a hand to take a swing at him. His posture doesn’t break. He feels like he’s been punched by her before, knows it won’t hurt. Knows she’s not going to do it after her fist stills in the air and holds. His own hands fall to his lap, fingers folding together as his body goes lax.

They sit together. Her shoulders stay tense. 

“It’s not workin,” she says, eventually, and though it’s quiet he does not pretend to miss it.

Hinata... hesitates. Because he’d misspoke last time. He doesn’t want to scare her like that again, even if he’s still trying to figure out what he’d done wrong. 

“Of course it’s not,” Hinata says, carefully slow. As though calculating each word as he speaks it. “You’re..  _ making  _ yourself sick.”

He fucks it up again. Bad phrase- 

“I’m not  _ making  _ myself anything.” She doesn’t snap this time though. It’s firm. Insistent and  _ stubborn  _ .

He rushes to fix it.

“Not on purpose.” He corrects, “Not exactly. Sorry.” He runs his hand through his hair, feels the way humidity sticks to his skin. 

“What you’re doing. Is making yourself sick. You’re not, going out of your way to, you know? It just... happens like that. Like, it can be accidental, but still something you’re doing.” Her eyes narrow. “ _ Counter productive _ .” 

She lets him talk himself out of that one. He kind of feels like he’s making an ass of himself, but the more he goes on the further her shoulders fall. He sees exhaustion in the etchings of her cheeks, in the way bags hang under her eyes. 

“Hinata.” She reaches over to press a hand on his shoulder. The grip isn’t nearly as strong as she’d like it to be, and he doesn’t pretend it is. “Shut the hell up.”

He shuts the hell up.

“Stop trying to tell me what to do. Stop acting like- you  _ know  _ something about me I don’t.”

“Well-”

“Hinata.”

He stops.

Her hand grips into the cloth of his shirt. He realizes, blankly, that he’s yet to pull his fingers apart. They’re intricately laced, tight against one another, trembling, whereas the rest of him is still.

“...This isn’t healing, Owari,” he eventually says. “You’re not helping like this. You can’t force yourself to heal faster,” 

She pulls away from him.

“Well-” Her voice is tight, “That's what we’re here for, right? To heal.  _ Right _ ?”

She curls up. Her boney figure gives a tremor. He’s not sure if it’s because she’s cold, or if it’s because she’s crying. It’s probably both.

It’s definitely both.

He remembers, maybe one of the first few nights they’d been awake, walking in on Owari crying. He’d been concerned, of course. He’d tried to help. But nothing he could think to say in that moment would suffice. Comfort wasn’t distant; it was nonexistent. He hadn’t realized how disconnected he was until he was standing there, in her doorway, unable to think of anything to say.

She’d slammed the door in his face, when she realized he was there.

There’s no leaving here. There’s no door to close, and nothing to hide behind.

Hinata slowly, uncertainly, and unceremoniously falls to slot himself next to her. Rests his arms around her waist, and presses his face into her shoulder, fingers linking back together. She’s tense, at first. Shoulders sharp, breathing still. 

Then slowly.

Relaxes into it. Accepts it.

Her sob isn’t broken this time. It’s not even frustrated. It’s just there because it needs to be, because she needs the release of emotions. He wants to assure her she can cry, just  _ cry _ .

He doesn’t need to. She just does.

“Everything  _ hurts  _ all the time, I’m real tired, and cold, and, and-” She sounds so bitter. It’s something he barely registers, barely notices, too focused on her words, “I wish Coach was here, ya’know? He always knew what to do and say.”

“Yeah,” he says, because it’s the only thing he  _ can  _ say right now.

“Like- Once, when we were fightin’, I was real off kilter because of the whole murder thing going on, you know?” She shifts, sits up to rub her eyes, “And I kept gettin’ real frustrated. And he just  _ knew _ . He knew why, he knew what to say. He was certain we would make it through it, you know? He  _ knew  _ we would get out of there.”

Hinata tightens his grip.

“... I miss him,” she whispers. “Do you think they’ll actually wake up?”

“Yes,” he says, immediately. He  _ knows  _ that. Knows it will just take time.

He rests his cheek against her head and closes his eyes. She feels sort of... Small, like this. He doesn’t imagine she’d want to hear that.

Her hand comes up to rest against his arm. She doesn’t grip, and doesn’t push him away. She just holds him there, silent. 

“I hope you’re right,” she sniffs. “I think you are. You know things.”

He carefully does not laugh. Air quickly leaves him, and his shoulders shake, but he doesn’t laugh. “I know things?”

“Yeah! You just  _ know  _ things. You know?” She rubs her eyes, “Like in the trials n’ shit. And when we’re cleaning. You just... Know these things.”

He doesn’t. But he doesn’t think it matters. Because it brings some amount of comfort to her, enough for her to relax entirely back into his grip.

He thinks about Kuzuryu, sitting and whispering on Pekoyama’s pod. He thinks about Souda, pulling apart his piece by piece. And Sonia, holding the scarf tighter in her grip.

He feels Owari shiver. 

He can only hope he’s right about this one.

Hinata falls asleep like that. Feels the weight of their conversation drag him under, exhaustion from emotion and sleep deprivation mixing into a single easy cocktail. But not until he feels her breathing even out first.

Hinata dreams that night. Of the world breaking around him in blocks and code, and the light that seeps in through the cracks of the facade. 

He dreams to the sound of the ocean, and Owari’s heavy breathing.

**== Day Three End**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> O u no. . .


	5. lets go fishing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> they take off their shirts

By the time Hinata wakes up, the storm has long since passed. The puddles that decorate the ground have nearly dried, and the sky rests in dull hues of eerie purples and golds. There’s an odd crick in his neck, and Owari is curled up against him in such a way that her legs are bent under his, arms are tucked to his hips. The rise and fall of her shoulders is steady, and the weight on his shoulder is a comfort. 

In an odd way, it is tranquil.

He is reminded that they are safe. 

Hinata closes his eyes, and forces himself to fall back asleep to the sound of waves. And he, once again, sleeps well.

=

Kuzuruyu wakes up to Hinata once again making coffee.

"Oh my fucking god. You have issues," he says, already sounding exasperated.

Hinata squints at him through the bleary eyed exhaustion he currently feels, "My head hurts. Caffeine helps expand the blood vessels, makes it easier to ward off pain,” He mumbles this in a dry, analytical tone he does not care enough about to stop, and lists off the fact he knows from the back of his mind. 

(He only really questions this knowledge after he’s said it. But it’s fine, he thinks. He’s known this since before highschool, has always been his go to for longer nights or particularly early mornings.)

"Or you’re a caffeine addict with a problem," Kuzuruyu scoffs, "Have you just always been like this?"

"...Yes,” He thinks there _might_ be a trick question in here, but Hinata is too out of it to discover what it might be.

Kuzuryu opens his mouth to question him further. 

The door to the kitchen, instead, bursts open.

"Mornin’!" Akane chimes, bright, Souda dragging himself in behind her. There’s a few slices of a canned peach hanging from his lips, plastic fork poking out from the can in his hand, "We're fightin’ today?”

She sounds a little too eager at the idea.

"Hinatas got a coffee addiction and won’t admit it," Kuzuryu snatches what he came in here for (A cup, which he notable and pointedly goes out of his way to fill with water. Luke warm, if he has to guess.)

"People who judge don't get coffee made for them," Hinata mumbles, blankly, and goes back to staring at his make shift brew set up

Souda lights up, “Soul Bro, you know I would  _ never _ judge you!"

That fact is subjective at best. But, he only offers something close to a, "Good answer," and goes back to messing with the system he's devised in an attempt to strain the coffee better.

“Like, seriously,  _ nothing _ to judge!” Souda continues, eager-like, and even Owari seems to offer something of a bemused look his way.

“I.. Will make you coffee,” Though, he's unsure as to why Souda is suddenly so eager for coffee. Any time he's had it, he always ends up wrinkling his nose at it (Before, naturally, drinking it in one go.)  Still. He looks so pleased at the idea of it that Hinata isn't going to tell him he doesn't need to drink coffee,  "Uh. Go sit down. I'll bring it out with breakfast."

With an easy stretch and another peach, Souda turns heel to leave the kitchen. Owari makes a move to follow him.

"Ah- Hey. Wait."

=

Owari sits with him as he makes food that morning.

(“I’m sorry,” He’d told Sonia, bowing slightly, “There’s just something I need to talk to her about.”

“... Something personal?”

There’s some level of understanding, that’s come between the four them. Sometimes Kuzuryu and Sonia will be tucked off in some corner of the room, talking in quick whispers that he knows he's not really suppose to be able to hear. Things about her country. His family. Othertimes, Kuzuryu sits with Souda instead. Hinata has been pulled away once, twice, by Souda. He'll sit and ramble about nothing and everything at once, ripping apart the first electronic he could get his hands on. Working or otherwise. 

Sometimes things are just personal, like that.

“Something personal.”

The look in Sonia's eye is sharp. 

Owari has always been the exception. They know, of course. It's not that she doesn't feel. She's only human, afterall, and no one normal would come out of this situation unfazed. But the door to her hospital room had always ended up locked. She'd disappear. Wait until she thinks everyone is asleep. Sonia had tried to approach her, once. Had never told him exactly what Owari said to her, but had come out of the room looking particularly hassled after the fact. She'd sat in silence across from him for a good hour before saying anything.

"I think. We should leave her alone for now," Is what she had settled on, eventually.

And Hinata could have told her that. But he hadn't. Because it wasn't his place to. Because he'd struggled to trust his own judgement on the matter. 

His judgement is still, somewhat questionable. He's not sure if he'll ever be able to trust it.

“Very well. But understand that you will not be able to avoid my cooking for dinner, Hinata-san!” She sounds joking, but the determined glint in her eye tells him otherwise.)

“You want to eat throughout the day,” He tells Owari, as he cuts through the bamboo shoots he and Kuzuryu had found scattered about in the undergrowth, “Instead of all at once.”

“Well that don’t sound too hard… I do like snackin’” She mumbles. She doesn’t sound confident about that point. It’s odd, to hear that tone in her voice.

“Yeah. But you don’t want to eat  _ too _ much,” He raises the knife. Lowers it, somewhat shakily, when he realizes he’s pointing it directly at her, “You want to uh.. Take your time with it, you know?”

“Sounds real stupid. The only way you get real flavor out of something is by goin' for it all at once, you know? Then you can't miss any of it,” She doesn’t pout, because he’s never seen Owari pout. But she does poke at the food on the plate he’s preparing like it’s something dangerous, and lets out a huff sharp enough to hear.

“It’s not like the food will disappear,” He points out, more bemused then concerned.

“Maybe it will. You know. Into my stomach,” Owari props her chin up onto the palms of her hand.

“You know what I mean.”

Having her there isn’t horrible, by any stretch of the means. He’ll ask her for some supply, or ingredient, take a sip of his coffee, stir the food about in the pan. She’ll drag her knee’s up to her stomach despite the fact that she’s sitting on the counter, mindlessly hand him whatever he requests.

It’s harder to fall into the mindless lull that has come with his morning routine, but.  It’s nice, having the company.

(He’s in the process of portioning out plates when she actually bothers to ask;

“How much is too much?” 

“Huh?”

“Food,” She glares down at the dish like it’s betrayed her, “How much is too much food.”

“...” Hinata reaches over to portion out some food off the plate, “Like that. Just eat the rest throughout the day.”

She looks disappointed. It’s something he wishes he missed.)

=

They all separate for breakfast. Souda has apparently deemed Hinata’s presence no longer required, as he’d snatched his plate off the table with papers in hand and made a mad dash for the balcony that led out the building. Sonia and Kuzuryu seemed to be eating in parts, working through some plan that he could barely kinda hear from the otherside of the room (Though, it seems less personal and more heated then anything. Something about the color of the paint they were using.)

Which leaves him with Owari, sitting legs dangling off the deck.

“If we go out to the ocean and find some seaweed. I bet we could make onigiri?” He points out, his own plate cast aside so he could think instead. He’s not feeling particularly hungry, despite himself, “It would be something easy to eat. Throughout the day, I mean.”

“Ya think?” She considers it, kicks her legs out off the deck. Her own plate is already emptied, pushed behind her so that it’s out of sight. She's giving his own somewhat envious glances, purposefully attempts to keep her eyes leveled to the sea instead.

“Yeah,” Hinata closes his eyes. Despite being early in the morning, the heat was already beginning to choke him. It was never this hot in the simulation. Had always been just hot enough to be enjoyable. Never hot enough to be dizzying, “We can make them small enough to be eaten in one sitting. I can’t promise they’ll be anything incredible. I mean- We’re only working with so many ingredients. No sauces. No flavoring. I think it will get old fast. But. Yeah.”

She considers it. He can see the way it crosses her face, “Just for me, huh?”

He nods, “We don’t have a fridge close to the restaurant. Would have to work around that. But I don’t think that will hard to do.”

They’re quiet. Hinata gets the chance to clear through the rest of his food, and Owari spends time attempting to throw stones into the pool from their spot on the stairs.

“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever really had a whole buffet just for me. Sounds real nice,” He does not miss the way her hands grip at her sweats, tight enough to turn her knuckles white.

But she beams nonetheless.

=

By the time they’re out in the ocean scavenging, the sun is high enough in the sky to blind his gaze, and his hair is sticking to the back of his neck. He stands close enough to the tides that sand drags around his feet. A welcome, momentary relief to the heat. 

“I bet we could catch some crabs while we’re here,” Owari tosses the basket away from the waves. A dusty one, they’d happened to pick up while cleaning, “Those would be real yummy.”

Hinata nods.

"Or even some fish. I'm real good at catching those. Sometimes, when you're real careful, you can just snatch em up out of the water all real quick like,” As if to demonstrate, her hands snatch through the air, plucking up nothing but grinning bright, “You just need a real sharp stick and you can stab em!”

“It would be easier if we had nets…” He considers it, gazing out to the near endless waves. He can guess where most of the fish would gathers at this hour. Can make an assumption (One he knows is correct) as to how to most efficiently catch them. But he’s not sure if efficiency is the goal, so much as entertainment. Perhaps a mix of both? He muses over it, the words, “Could catch more.. Maybe around the rivers instead?” Slipping thoughtlessly out instead.

“Nah! There’s no fun in that. Come on, we gotta go for the big ones!”

And, when he glances back over, Owari has her shirt off, and is in the process of shifting off her shorts and underwear in one fell swoop.

Hinata...  _ stares _ for a moment. It's not that he means to, really, and he’s not entirely unaware of how rude it must come off as. But he’s still.. Processing it. Realizing what she’s doing. And by the time it finally clicks, she’s kicking her shorts off to join the growing pile of clothing that’s gathered around the basket.

“Uh.”

Owari finally seems to notice his gaze on her. She doesn’t seem offended. Nor does she seem embarrassed. Instead, she just looks confused, “What? Why are you lookin’ at me like that?”

".. What are you doing?" He asks, calmly, with a surprising amount of ease.

"I'm getting ready to go swimmin'? Duh," Owari gives him a teethy grin, the sort that shows off her canines and splits from ear to ear, "The right way to do that is fully nude, and now there's no  _ killjoy _ to stop us."

"I'm not really sure that-" His words end up a little more rushed then intended, not that it matters much. She’s quick to interrupt him with a sharp remark of;

"Don't tell me you're just gonna go swimming fully clothed? Fuckin weirdo" 

"_I'm_ the weird one??"

She wrinkles her nose at him and his incomprehensive choking.

(He’s seen Owari nude one other time. When he'd been pushed to do their.. checkups, because no one else knew how. Because Kuzuryu cursed Future Foundation out when they brought it up, and Owari had glared at them harsh enough to burn daggers. Though Sonia was polite, Souda didn’t care, they thought better then not to risk it.

None of them talk about it, really.) 

He focuses, momentarily, on the definition of Owari’s frame. It’s not that he means to. But when he glances back over, he catches sight of the way she’s mostly bone instead of muscle, how her body has become a canvas littered with scars. And it’s not that he’s uncomfortable. 

Really, the issue is more that he doesn’t feel anything about it. 

(He ends up pushing it aside, because. He doesn’t need to think on it. This is just how it is now.)

"It's just us," She points out, the tension in her shoulders lowering, "Not like there’s anyone ‘round I would care about seein’ me in the nude, you know?” 

“I guess…”

“Yeah! Yeah, see?” And, without waiting for another reply, she rushes into the water, “I’m totally going to catch more of these suckers then you! I’ll bet my tits on it!”

...

Hinata watches the way the tides pull around his feet. Off in the distance, a seagull shrieks for food.

“Well,” He says, and he’s fully aware that it’s just to himself, “Let’s just. Take our clothes off. I guess.”

=

Owari spends her time carefully wading in the deep end of the ocean, occasionally dipping down under the water and returning with a fish she needs two hands to grasp.

“See? It’s where all the good fish are,” She tells him when she passes, “This water is real clear too. It’s like- Easy mode. Ya’know?”

He does not know. But he nods along like he does.

Hinata, on the other hand, does not strip fully down. He takes off his shirt and rolls his pants up to his knees and sticks to the shallows, and the water occasionally rises high enough to soak the legs of his pants but never really enough to hit his waist. He spends his time scrapping through the sand, digging up clams and shells. And while it’s not really what they came out here for, it’s a nice change of pace.

Kind of. Just for a moment.

“S’that?” She asks, leaning over to eye the bit of green he’d collected in his hand. The fish in her hands offers a flop, easily silenced with a new strangle hold on it.

“Sea glass. I didn’t think we’d find any around here,” Hinata says, holds it up to the sun. Neither of them say anything, so he fills the silence with it, “It’s- made from glass that was worn down in the ocean. Kind of like drift wood. It’s sort of rare though.”

Owari squints at it, “Okay but can you like.. Eat it?”

“.. No. You can’t.” 

“You sure? Looks pretty yummy. Kinda like candy or something.”

“...” He pulls his hand away from her, because he practically see the droll beginning to form at her lip.

“I’m only messing with ya. Don’t look like that,” She pats his back, and the fish flops defiantly about in her grip, “Imm’a go kill this thing before it gets away.”

Quietly, Hinata pockets the seaglass for later. Maybe, if he gets lucky, he’ll find a crab or two under the rocks. 

=

Eventually, they find enough to fill their basket and then some. Hinata moves on from digging for shells, to plucking through sea weed, and Owari returns time and time again to add another fish to her growing collection of meat.

“I know a few good recipes for em. They're best eaten raw, but some of the lil'ones wouldn't eat 'em like that. So I had to learn how to cook it up real good,” She tells him, a note of pride coloring her tone, "Betcha we have some of the stuff we need, too. Never had a lot of supplies at home. Worked with what we had, right?"

"Right.." He trails off. Hinata packs everything they collected properly into the basket, and  Owari takes the chance to brush the sand off her arms and legs.

"Come on! First time we'll be eating REAL meat in a while!"

He realizes, as she walks off, that he hasn’t seen a look so bright on her face since they'd came out of the simulation.

It’s something he decides not to take for granted. 

=

Hinata walks into the lobby and is immediately greeted by the overwhelming smell of cleaner and fresh paint. 

They’d worked quickly, by the looks of it. Though the mess in the lobby had been far lesser than the damage to the restaurant, he still finds himself impressed by the speed the two of them had worked. 

(He sees flaws in their handiwork, of course. Dirt stuck in the cracks of the floorboards, a bit of mold that has tucked itself where they would not be able to reach. But it’s all easy fixes. All things he could manage to clean before they wake up the next morning. They’d never know it was there, if he’s careful enough.)

Hinata, quietly, props the door open with the nearest rock he can find to vent the room of it’s fumes.

“I did not.. Think it mattered which direction you mop,” He hears Sonia say, contemplative, as she looks over the streaks that had been left in the floor. 

“Shit if I know,” Kuzuryu doesn’t bother looking up from his paint job. Using the same shade of green they’d obtained for the restaurant, by the looks of it, “If it’s clean, it’s clean. It doesn’t have to be perfect.”

“Kuzuryu-san, I refuse to do things Half Assed!” She says it with a tone sharper enough to cut, glares down at her handiwork as though it’s personally insulted her with it’s subpar performance.

“It’s just going to end up covered up again..” Kuzuryu sighs, rubs at the makeshift eyepatch, “Yo, Hinata. Tell her not to worry about it.”

Her eyes narrow at him, as though daring him to follow through with that request.

“We have uh.. Dinner,” He says, instead, and nods to a still grinning Owari. 

“Okay- Okay so check it out,” Owari shoves past him, making her way over to Sonia without a moment's notice, "I'll show you how we use to cook it back at home."

He sees the way compilation flashes on Sonia’s face. A moment of uncertainty, as if the intrigue of a new style of food is worth abandoning the struggle of figuring out where she’d messed up in cleaning .

Hinata takes a few, easy steps over to take the mop from her. It's something entirely uninvited, and 

"Uh. I can take over. You wanted to learn how to cook, right?"

"Oh- Well. Yes, I did say that..." He has the sinking suspicion that this isn't exactly what she had in mind. But the look on Owari's face is entirely too excited (Well, in whatever way Owari can look excited) to be ignored, and the Sonia's look flashes from uncertain to bright in seconds, "Well? What will we be making?"

"My recipe ain't nothin' too fancy, you know? So it should be real easy to follow. Bet Hinata started you off on somethin' too hard," He hears Owari tell her, as they begin to walk off, "He thinks everyone is on his level, you know? But between you and me? You just slap these badboys over the fire and let them roast. Add a little salt or something. You don't even gotta wash them! Just gut 'em out correctly. And that's the fun part."

"Ah.. Does the sand not get in the way?"

"Huh? That just makes it crunchier."

Sonia offers a soft laugh, just under her breath, "I see!"

And just like that, the two of them disappear upstairs. He.. does has a flash of concern that maybe he should supervise them around an open fire. But ultimately, they were adults. And he sort of trusted them not to burn the building down. 

He wouldn't wander far.

"It.. doesn't matter which way you mop," Hinata tells an oddly red Kuzuryu, as soon as he's sure Sonia is out of ear shot, "She just needed to replace the water more often." 

“Hey. Yeah. Fuck that, more important question.” 

Hinata bends down to pick up the bucket, considering which window he could most effectively poor the dirtied water out of, “Yeah?”

“Why the hell doesn’t Owari have a shirt on?”

=

Hinata is half way through his staked fish when Souda sits down next to him. Unannounced, but full of life.

“Here you are!” He says, grinning wide, “If theres a flaw in these I’ll bite my own tongue off.”

“Don’t.. do that,” Hinata’s gaze flickers over the blue prints, “.. These are it?”

“These are it," Souda says, with a bit of pride to his tone.

There’s only two sheets of paper. The sketches are messy, notes are thoughtless, and frame work seems uncertain. But at the same time, they’re detailed,

“Let me tell you, there’s some pretty high tech stuff in there,” Souda runs a hand through his hair, and his smile becomes just a tad shakier, “I could tell you how it’s set up, but uh-”

“You don’t know what some of it does..” Hinata finishes, looking at the scratched off labels and erased lettering that had been chicken scratched off to the side.

“Er. I have a rough idea?” He points to one of the unmarked parts of the machinery using the base of his pen, clicking it once or twice in the process, “See this part here? I think it was scanning our brains, right? Because it’s connected directly to the mainframe, and was ‘round a bunch of wires that were near the head of the frame,” He traces a line down the side of the pod, “And- And this part, right? It’s connected to a bunch of medicine. Lots of real weird liquid I wasn’t going to touch. I bet it was to keep us under, you know?” He clicks his pen again, this time harder, gaze flickering across his own drawings. Like, despite his own words, he’s doubting them.

Hinata sort of follows along. 

(He’s trying not to look at the blueprints too hard. Because when he gazes over it, he can visualize these pods perfectly. Pictures it to an exact, piece by painstaking piece. He see’s which wires are suppose to connect to what part of the fram. Which tubes connect to which needle. He can see the way its suppose to collect data on them. He doesn’t understand how it worked through the data it collected. Not entirely. Not yet. But he thinks, maybe if he looks over the code. Maybe he could understand. And that maybe if he  _ understands- _ )

“And- And get this part, right?” Souda hesitates, “Most of the pods are actually connected to one another through these cables coming out the sides of it. I mean- I think you knew that already. But it’s sort of. Weird? I kinda just thought they were all hooked up to that weird computer thing.”

(- understands how the coding functions, he can understand what happened to them. Understand what went wrong. Afterall, the NeoWorld Program was never one meant for violence. A program meant for rehabilitation should not have allowed for death, even past the barrier of rules and regulations put in place. It would have been an oversight, to even consider it as a possibility. Was it because the program was rushed? Was it because-)

“Though, I don’t know how this uh. Really helps us...” He hears Souda trail off. Only a moment later, see’s his hand wave in front of his face, “Soul Bro? You still with me here?”

(-Because of him? What did he do to it. How did he change the programming. How did Enoshima change that. Surely, there had to have been a hard block on it? The human brain is an incredible thing, but how did it get past the machine. How did it feed into their bodies. If they were just avatars, surely without upload it wouldn’t matter? Why did it matter. What part of the program-)

The feeling of Souda’s hand grabbing his arm is close to the feeling of having ice poured down his back. It snaps him out of his thoughts immediately, and ruthlessly. He doesn’t jump, as a result of it. Doesn’t even startle. But his eyes finally rip away from the prints that have sucked him in, gaze turns to Souda so he can simply.. Look.

“Hey uh. You alright?” Souda asks, eyebrows furrowing down a bit.

“Yeah? Yeah. I’m just- thinking,” There’s no confusion in his tone. Nothing behind it whatsoever. He’s hyperaware of how blank it is, knows he’s putting no effort into changing that. But he can’t bring himself to. Not while he’s so deep in thought. Not while- “About. This. You know?”

Souda does not, in fact, look like he knows.

“Right,” Souda says, and he doesn’t miss the nervous laugh behind his voice, “Yeah, I’m going to be thinking about this for a while too. It feels sort of like I’m missing something, you know?”

“No,” Hinata reaches up to grab the papers, shuffle between the two of them, “I mean- I get it. It’s just.. a lot of help. I think- I think we can work with this. Uh. Thank you,” It comes out awkward. Hinata knows this, is hyper aware of how that feels on his tongue. 

=

Hinata sleeps easy that night. 

Has a dream.

His hair is maybe at his shoulders, maybe at his shoulder blades. It’s hard to tell with the way his head is tilted. He’s sitting in a bath, in a room that's entirely white. Made maybe mostly of tile, fogged up by water hot enough to sting his skin. Not that he minds. Rather, not that he cares.

There's no mirrors in the room, and a towel is laid on the floor just out of his reach. It is, otherwise, empty. 

Some water drips into the bath from the faucet.

The sound of it hurts his head.

There’s a bottle sitting across from him. A Two-in-One shampoo and conditioner. The Two-in-One smells strongly of honey and coconut. A soap bar with some artificial fragrance that's suppose to be roses, but he know's is too strong to actually be rose scented, sits next to it.

The odd mixture of smells worsens his headache.

The label to the shampoo tells him the soap is made of _aqua, __water__, eau sodium laureth sulfate sodium lauryl sulfate cocamide mea glycol distearate sodium chloride ci 42090, blue 1 ci 60730, ext. violet 2 guar hydroxypropyltrimonium chloride cocos nucifera (__coconut__) water sodium benzoate sodium hydroxide ppg-5-ceteth-20 argania spinosa kernel oil salicylic acid dimethicone limonene fumaric acid linalool benzyl __alcohol_ _vanilla planifolia extract,_ _vanilla__ planifolia __fruit extract__ aloe barbadensis, __aloe__ barbadensis leaf juice parfum, fragrance carbomer __citric acid__ citronellol potassium sorbate coumarin hexyl cinnamal glycerin-_

The label also tells him it is a mood booster. He thinks this might be to mock him.

Another drop of water hits the bath.

Some part of him, the same part that feeds him the ingredient list, tells him that he should not use either of these. Two-in-one is bad for his hair. The soap bar is cheap and will dry out his skin.

The other part of him wants nothing more then to feel clean. 

He is unsure which is worth listening to.


	6. replacement

It’s not a nightmare, that he wakes up from.  
A nightmare implies theres something to be scared of. A nightmare implies fear. Neither of these things ring true in the slightest.

But there’s an undeniable weight on his chest as he stares into the darkness. His chest feels heavy and his eyes sort of sting, and when he goes to sit up he finds his limbs feel heavy. 

He doesn’t attempt to go back to sleep.

Instead, he puts a pot of water over an open flame, makes his way down the stairs, and gets started on finishing up the work that he’d left behind the night prior. He spends some time properly cleaning up and When he knows it’s been long enough for the water to hit a boil (He gives it ten minutes exactly) goes to throw coffee in the pot.

It is roughly three in the morning. He knows this, because when he glaces out to the sea of stars the moon sits across from him. He sits cross legged and mindlessly names off the stars and constellations as he spots them, and doesn’t entirely realize he’s doing it until he’s goes to take another sip from his cup only to find it empty.

So he pours himself another cup, puts out the fire, and gets back to work.

The arcade machines are trashed. He takes the time to move each of them out back, far enough to be out of the way but nowhere they could be further damaged. Maybe Souda could use them for parts. Maybe he could restore them. It wasn’t as though they could use them without electricity, but it would be nice to have. 

There’s a pile of rugs and curtains that have been piled aside from night prior. Only some of them are worth saving. He rolls up the ones that are too moldy, too eaten way, and places them carefully between the abandoned arcade machines. Spends time hanging the rugs over the edge of the balcony upstairs, and uses his hand to beat the dirt and dust off of them. He spends the time to properly clean what windows he can, tapes up the broken ones and carefully cleans up the abandoned glass.

He goes through and wipes down each of the chairs and tables, balances two of them to reach the ceiling fans and do the same. It takes roughly six different rags, four buckets of water, and almost the entire pot of coffee to finish cleaning the place. And by the time he’s done, the sun is only barely beginning to rise. 

Two and a half hours. Not nearly as long as he thought it would take, he thinks, as he finishes off the last of the pot. 

//

Hinata goes to clean and place the pot where it belongs when he notices something off.

The flowers are wilting. Catches the detail out of the corner of his eye. The flower crowns they’d made have long since been hooked over the edge of the balcony, like small, decorative wreaths. But the petals have dried out, and the ones in the bowel are quickly following in their tracks. 

He considers it for a moment. Runs his fingers over paper petals and accidentally breaks one off.

Almost everyone is still asleep. He counts three heads, hears three different breaths. If he works quickly, he’ll go unnoticed. 

So he takes the time to pour the old and fill it anew. Dumps the petals out into the ocean by the walk way.

The old flowers get carried away by the tides. Despite his hurry, he takes the time to do it one by one, only introducing another flower when the old has carried far enough does he drop another one.

It’s sort of cathartic, watching them drift away. Watching others get eaten by the waves. He makes sure to count each of them, personally, taking note of each color as they pass through his fingers.

It’s not that he doesn’t think he could replace the flower crowns. He thinks he might be able to replace them a little too efficiently, is the thing. Might just be able to model them near exactly. 

It would be too obvious, he thinks. 

He leaves them be. Places his focus in actually harvesting the flowers he needs. 

Now. It’s not Kuzuryu’s voice that startles Hinata. Nor doesn’t his footsteps. But for some reason, he’s surprised he’s been approached at all. He would have assumed Kuzuryu would have just gone back inside, and ignored his disappearance. That he woudn’t have saught him out. But Kuzuryru is holding one of the discarded flowers in his hand. A bright red one, with a torn third petal and an especially long . He remembers it as maybe the fourth one he’d dumped into the ocean.

“You cleaned the lobby,” Kuzuryu mentions, like it’s a regular conversation topic.

“I couldn’t sleep. It uh- wasn’t like there was much else to do. But it’s done now. We can move onto more important things,” Hinata doesn’t look at him, pretends like he’s more focused on his task at hand, “You found it on the beach,” He says. 

It’s not a question. 

(He knows Kuzuryuu’s developing morning routine. There’s a stack of cheap plates deemed too worn down with time to get use out of. Where dirt has gotten too far into the cracks, and no amount of scrubbing will get them truly clean. They’ve been disappearing one by one each morning, shards have been appearing by the stones more and more. Kuzuryu has a scattering of cuts on his hands, careless and in the beginning stages of scabbing over.

He doesn’t ask about it, and Kuzuryu doesn’t talk about it. But they both sort of know)

“Yeah,” Kuzuryu spins the flower between his fingers, delicately crushing it with each new roll. 

“The waves probably carried it in your direction,” A possibility he should have considered, but didn’t care enough to work around. Hinata finally looks back to the small collections of flowers, tries to snap back into himself. It doesn’t work, entirely, “They’ll be disappointed if they wake up and realize the flowers died, you know?” Hinata mumbles, rubs the back of his neck, “So. Yeah. I’m gonna.. Switch them. I guess.”

“Yeah,” Kuzuryu repeats, steps over to meet him, “It would kinda fuckin’ suck, wouldn’t it.” He bites his lip, “How many more do you need?”

“There were uh,” Hinata doesn’t struggle to remember, “33. Yeah. Give or take,” Exactly. 33 exactly, “Sixteen red, seven yellow, ten white,”

Kuzuryu almost lets out a startled huff. Hinata thinks it might just be laughter, “Does it have to be exact?”

“.. Well. No one would notice otherwise,” He raises his gaze just in time to see confusion flicker in Kuzuryu’s, “It feels sort of wrong not to.”

“It’s not that serious,” Kuruzyu says. However, he looks at the flowers Hinata’s picked so far. Counts seven yellow. Eight White. See’s the two in Hinata’s hand, “Oh. Are you fuckin’ serious?”

Hinata says nothing.

“Okay. Cool. Sixteen red flowers, got it.”

Kuzyuryu is easy to get along with, like that. He doesn’t question his specifics, doesn’t ask questions, despite his curiosity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> folds my hands together  
So. Story time. (This isn't a discontinue message don't worry)
> 
> The Heart Grows Fonder was the first large fic I started coming into danganronpa. At the time, I had a preference for writing long form chapters that only updated occasionally. However, around the start of The Pandemic I started a different fic that made me realize that I work far more smoothly when I take it a few scenes at a time.
> 
> Originally, this story was going to have a very formulaic way of posting, especially for the first two weeks of instory time. Every chapter was going to be a day, with a chunk dedicated to morning, afternoon, and then evening. I think, I am going to change this, moving forward. I am going to take this scene by scene, as I've grown custom to. I also think this will help about some of the pacing I feel odd about.
> 
> This is something I don't think many people would actually notice or question, if I didn't bring attention to it. However, I just. Like. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯   
It feels more appropriate to say something about it.
> 
> Anyway, I'm hoping this change of pace allows for more frequent updates. I got over the biggest plot hurdle coming up, which I think is very sexy of me.


	7. Cleithrophobia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hinata catches up on some sleep

They don’t talk much, on the way back. 

(“I’ve memorized the pattern to an exact,” Hinata says, as he reorders the flowers they’ve picked, “How they’d had it, I mean. Just at a glance. It’s kind of..”

“Weird?”

“Yeah. Weird. I guess.”

Kuzuryu looks at the ground, instead of him.)

Souda is blearily glancing around the room as they wander back in (A nonproblem, he doesn’t _ really _ wake until a good thirty minutes after he’s up, spends time messing with the closes object he can rip apart and put back together. Today it’s a calculator. He barely notices they’re there.) and Owari and Sonia are still curled up in a pile, hidden under a blanket that has been carefully and mindlessly hung up to avoid the light. He takes the time to place the bowl as he found it, tucked on the table they’ve declared as their own.

He won’t mention it later. None of them will.

Kuzuryu will poke mindlessly at the dried petals of one of the flower crowns for a good few seconds, willing himself to ask something that won’t come out. Hinata knows this, because he’s opened his mouth twice over to say something, then has not.

Neither of them talk about it.

It is not Kuzuryu’s place to ask, just as it’s not Hinata’s place to prompt.

Sonia is the next person to wake up. Owari the last. The normal excitement that tends to come with the morning seems to have simmered away with the heat, as the only sound that echo’s throughout the hall is the sound of pans on the stovetop.

Owari comes to watch him cook as Sonia rushes around to grab ingredients from their unoragnized stock. Kuzuryu takes the time to clean up their living space, and Souda awkwardly folds things in a half hearted but earnest attempt at cleaning. 

It’s good. An easy morning. 

...

He develops a headache within the hour.

This isn’t something he’s unuse to, entirely. Stress headaches have haunted him since early highschool. (An unfortunate but accepted part of his routine. Up late studying, up early for school. Not a lot of time for sleep inbetween. Realistically, he probably got more sleep in the simulation than he had for the years leading up to it prior. He wonder what that says about him. He wonders if this familiarity should be okay.)

It’s something, ultimately, he decides will pass.

//

It does not, ultimately, pass.

It _ evolves _. The light creeps into his gaze, becomes brighter and blinding, and the sound of the distant waves crash against his skull. The world turns under him, insatiable and unreliable, and he’s left hiding in a pile of worn out blankets and sheets.

Owari seems to understand it the best.

“It’s kinda like when you got real nasty period cramps, and you can’t move at all. Except in your head instead,” She tells the others, with a tone that is completely sincere. He hears her tap her finger to her skull. And like, Hinata would tell her to knock it off, except she’s rubbing right against the base of his neck, and it’s actually _ sort of _helping.

“Oh!” Sonia’s voice rings with understanding, and he doesn’t have to be looking to guess the way Souda’s face scrunches up. Especially not with the sharp mumble of _ “dude.” _ He hears under Kuzuryu’s breath.

“My sis use to get some real bad ones,” She muses, pats him on the back in a way that absolutely does nothing for his situation.

Kuzuryu’s chair scrapes back, sends a shiver down his spine, “Hinata, are you going to be okay?”

Hinata raises the pillow to glare. The light hurts, so he immediately lowers the pillow instead.

“Cool.”

“I don’t suppose the heat is helping any..” Sonia offers, more a musing to herself then anything.

Owari gives what he thinks is suppose to be a thoughtful hum.

(He isn’t unaware of the lingering feeling of dehydration, nor how tightly the ponytail pulls at his skull. The feeling of hair sticking to the back of his neck. It’s just something he’d been ignoring, hadn’t really noticed or considered)

“You know, I bet I could fix us up an air conditioner,” Souda mentions, off handed and helpful, “Given the right parts.”

He imagines the hum of an air conditioner, how overwhelming it would be, to hear it click. To focus on air rushing through the vents. 

His stomach turns. 

“We need electricity first,” Kuzuryu points out.

His head pounds

“Well, yeah, I’m not- I mean I know _ that _,” Souda laughs nervously, evidently not having considered that, “It might help, is what I’m saying??”

Head pounds again.

“I’m still lookin’ at that pool,” Owari’s fingers stall, “It looks nasty with all the rain water in there.”

He grips the pillow tighter-

“What? If you want to go swimming, just go down to the beach,” Souda leans close enough that he _ feels _ him brush up against him, causes bugs to crawl under his skin, sudden enough to startle, cold enough to freeze him.

“I guess,” Owari stretches, her back cracks, it rings in his ear, “I do kinda prefer swimmin’ in the ocean. More freeing that way. But the pool would be kinda colder? And closer-”

Hinata jolts up from his spot.

“If you need me,” He says, mangling his tone into something that can be considered tolerant. Perhaps even calm, despite the croak of it, “I’m going to be in the lobby closet.”

“Huh,”

“There’s enough room,” He answers, thoughtless, considers it to himself more then the others, “It’s Dark. And quiet. Please- Don’t need me for a few hours.”

Owari grins bright (just the slightest bit shakily) at him, “Oh. Gotcha.” 

(He does not miss the uncertain look Kuzuryu and Sonia share. He doesn’t have to wonder if they’re going to talk about this on their own.)

Hinata hadn’t been joking. The closet in the lobby is a walk in, made more for storage then for clothing. There’s enough space to lay down comfortably, and it only smells like paint fumes if he lays facing the doorway. So instead, he takes a spot as close to the corner of the closet as he can and curls up in the blankets he’d dragged in. The air in the closet smells musky, but he’s far less bothered by it then he’d be before all this. 

It is comfortable, and quiet, and when he winds himself tight enough in his sheets, it just barely muddies the sounds of the outside world. 

It is only about 9 in the morning. 

Hinata is exhausted.

//

//

//

//

There’s something unexplainably nostalgic, about being strapped down to a surgical table.

There’s a monitor that flickers just outside his line of sight. Blue on black, scans of a brain that has been explored and exploited, invaded and upgraded. The room is cold and clean, air is stale and chemical. He stares up at the lights with hope that it might blind him. Would be interesting to experience, he supposed. 

“Will I be awake, or under today?” He asks the room he knows he’s not alone in, “How will I be rewired today?”

There’s the sound of pacing behind him. Sandals on tile, the slightest bit of a scuff. Leather. Familiar. He hears the sound of a page turning, quick scribbling. He gets a reply, harsh on his ears, familiar, but incomprehensible. 

There’s static, on the outer ends of his mind. It invades his ears and worms its way to his skull. The hints of an approaching headache. It will not remain there for long, he supposed.

(He does have to wonder if the average person knows the bleak reality of a well split skull.)

He knows the answer to his own question. Under. Knows that there should be more to this scene. Longer. That his companions words shouldn’t be so unforgiving on his ears, that he should be pressing for more. It is not curiosity that drives his, nor the hunger for knowledge, or the assurance of safety. It is ire, harsh and true, and the satisfaction that comes from having it directed at him and him alone. 

But the glare of the light is just as unnatural as the twist of the walls, and he feels as though his lips have been stitched and tongue has been cut. He feels fingers in his hair, grip, yank back, straps tighten. A needle piercing his arm, ice in his veins.

Perhaps he will choke on his own blood like this.

He knows when he wakes up, it will be in a hospital bed, behind a locked door. Perhaps he will end up vomiting from the anesthesia. (He has a history of bad reactions to it.) Perhaps he will scratch at the bandaging until his hands are forced down and bandaging is changed. He is rather uncontrolled, coming off medication

There will be nothing to do besides sleep off the drugs.

He knows this to be true. There is not, and never has been, any comfort in sterility

//

//

//

// 

(And when Hinata wakes up it’s in that dusty closet. His veins are ice and eyes are shot, and he grips at the splintering wood with a grip tight enough to burn.

He knows, in that moment, that he is being choked.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \+ Character Tag  



	8. unfortunately, these walls don't talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hinata Clears His Head

There's no one around, when Hinata bursts from the closet he'd been so comfortable in before hand. He supposes he's lucky, in that regard. No one to see the way he scratches lines into his bare throat, trying to ease the feeling of pressure that should by no means be there. No one to see what is an undeniably panicked frenzy of pacing and nerves. 

A dream, he tries to tell himself. A dream, right from the start. There's nothing holding him down, no one cutting into his skull. Nothing choking him out. He's alive, breathing. He's Hinata Hajime. Has always been Hinata Hajime.

He was choking on dust. Restraint by his sheets. He's on remains of Jabberwock island, five people, an old forgotten hotel. Their surroundings are rotting around them, eaten apart by bugs and mold and no matter how much cleaning they do they will never get rid of the damages caused by isolation. They are surrounded by a mess of their own creation, disorderly organization. And it's _comforting_, that t he closest thing to sterility that they have is a kitchen sink thats been attacked and abused by cleaning chemicals and disinfectant. 

(Well. He stalls, as he realizes. That's not entirely true.)

There's a box of tools Souda keeps at the end of his space.

They aren't exactly all new, certainly not in perfect condition. But well enough that he can still get use out of them, and certainly something he prides himself on owning. 

Hinata is swift, when he swipes the first screw driver he sees from the box. Flat ended. Small.

“Hey,” He tells Souda, in passing, not entirely ignorant of his own monotone, “If you need me, I’m going to be up at the Future Foundation building.”

Souda doesn’t bother looking up from the lights he’s working on. Nothing they can use, but nothing worth sitting on, he supposed. He makes a sound close to a hum, considers, half hearted, “You going up there to work on-”

“Something like that,” Hinata twists the screw driver in his hand, hides it against the flat of his palm, “If the others ask, just tell them I went out to look for food. No preservatives in the ones we have, you know?”

“Right,” Souda doesn’t seem to be paying him any more mind than that. Too engaged in what he’s doing, he supposed.

They generally always are.

//

The locks in the hospital wing are new.

Knob Locks. There’s a set of master keys that have already been thrown into the ocean his third day awake (Snatched under Kirigiri’s nose, while she was having a particularly heated phonecall with her superiors.) 

But the mechanisms are simple. Lever tumbler. Easy enough to pick, if they must, but only able to be unlocked from the outside. 

It’s far easier to just break them, is the thing. It takes a moment of concentration, calculating the best place to jam it. Then he brings it down and watches as the metal is bent and scratched apart, broken under his hand alone.

Hinata takes it door by door, in a slight daze as he goes. It becomes less of an impulse and more of a fixation by the time he’s hit the last door in line. 

(Rather, it stopped being an impulse around the time he was walking up here, barefooted on a path with a screwdriver hidden up his sleeve. It wasn’t an impulse around the time he woke up in the dark, alone, with only the dust to choke him out. It’s not an impulse, not really. Just right. Something he needs to do.

Cathartic isn’t the correct word for it. It’s a purge. Assurance. An _investment_.)

It takes him five minutes to go down the first row. Seven to hit the wall across from it, because his hand begins to ache, and pace begins to slow. And when he’s done, he sits on the ground in a heap and draws his hands through his hair and stares at the screw driver that’s been thrown to the final door he’s butchered. 

The screwdriver is bent in. Unusable. It was unusable as a tool around the third door, but it’s bent and malformed now. 

(He’s no less shaken then he was when he woke up. He’s not sure if this helped at all. He isn’t sure if it was supposed to.

It probably needed to be done. He forces himself not to think about it.)

///

  
  


Hinata decides it's best not to make the entirety of his excuse a lie. He pushes the shower up to the hottest setting, rids himself of both the sweat and daze he’s been wandering in. His forehead rests against the cold tiles, unable to will himself to sit back down. If he sits, he knows he’ll loose himself for hours. Get caught up in the worst of his own thoughts.

(He takes a moment to look at the back of the bottle, eyes glazing over the shampoo ingredients. Hm. Not the best, but not the worst. You know, for an apocalypse.)

Sitting in the barren hospital room as he dries feels wrong. 

Like a crawling feeling under his skin. He bares it long enough to at least dress himself proper, dries the lengths of his hair in the hallway instead.

(He kicks the bent up screwdriver out of sight when he passes it. He’ll come back to it later.)

He lingers in the doorway of the NeoWorld program

If Souda is right about one thing, it’s that it is different being alone in here. He understands the hesitance. The sound of fans feels overwhelming, static dances across his skin. The hum of the machines running feels like a song. Something his footstops gets buried under, that envelopes him entirely. 

He manages to hold himself together until he reaches the mid-point of the room.

"Fuck," he mumbles sharply to himself. Then, feeling freed by the solace of isolation, "AGH!  _ FUCK _ ."

His hands slam down on the table hard enough to shake it, unhelped by the sharp tremors and shakes that momentarily wreck his form. He is grateful for the stability it brings, might just collapse in on himself if he had nothing else there. 

He spins on his heels, sharp enough to send his still drying hair in a hundred different directions. Hinata likes to think himself someone that generally doesn’t yell. However, he’s willing to,  _ forced _ to, make an exception for this. His voice leaves him without thinking about it, a wretched scream that rips his words from his throat and forces his hands to his sides.

"I could have just taken the doors off! The doorknobs! Could have dismantled the  _ locks _ ! What the hell was I thinking?! Why did I-”

Hinata struggles to breath for what feels like an hour. Shoulders heave in an attempt to will him back to the comfort of silence.

"What am I  _ forgetting _ ,” And just like that, his voice gives out on him. Cracks on the last word, against something he wishes was a hiccup. It’s not. He doesn’t think he’s cried, since coming out of the simulation. He doesn’t think he’s felt so strongly.

“My name is Hinata Hajime. I’m 22 years old, apparently, and- was accepted into Hopes Peak’s first Reserve Course class and-” And then. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Years of memories, torn apart and patched back together. He scratches at his mind for other things about himself, anything that comes after that. Of course, he knows his home town. He remembers the old convenience store he use to go to between classes at school, remembers the odd pathways behind his childhood home. 

But he’s still missing something. He knows there’s more to his story. Knows there’s something there, just out of reach. 

(He wonders if this is what Kamukura felt like, grappling for _ his past _ . Wonders if he wants to know the extent of Kamukura’s crimes.)

His name is  _ Hinata Hajime _ . His name is...

He steadies himself.

“Okay- Okay. Maybe somewhere else. Maybe… Well. We went through a killing game. The NeoWorld Program. Obviously. I mean it’s all right here. Komaeda set up the first murder, Hanamaru killed Togami, who’s not actually  _ Togami _ but- And then, Pekoyama killed Mahiru, and Tsumiki, killed, Mioda, and Saionji, and Komaeda..- We aren't in a killing game anymore. We don’t have to worry about dying,” He takes a passing look around the pod room, “... Don't have to worry about most of us dying again. Huh…”

And then he’s breathless, and paralyzed. 

It was almost as if, for the first time since coming out of the simulation, the weight of their reality crumbles around him. The hazy limbo that he’s been living in shattered, like a fragile glass window. It was one thing, to know the severity of their actions. The consequences of their fallout. It was another, to feel it in its entirety. To recognize, truly feel, the magnitude of their fates. 

He flops back into the computer chair and runs his hands through the still wet strands of hair. Just to get it out of his eyes. His fingers catch on the layers of scars carved in his skin, takes a moment to marvel at the still foriegn feeling.

“What am I doing.”

He sits in silence. Lets the computers buzz around him, like he’s hoping they have an answer for him.

It would be foolish, to actually think he’d get one.

“Remember when you were my biggest concern, “ He calls, dejected, to Komaeda’s pod.

He rubs at the pressure-points on his head, lulls back down the oncoming headache before it can once again worsen to something grander.

The computers don’t give him affirmation. They simply continue to hum.

Hinata closes his eyes and breaths in the static.

(Perhaps, he thinks. It wasn't a dream. Perhaps it was a memory.

What an unnerving thought.)

**Author's Note:**

> Hit me up @MystxMomo on the tumblers and the tweetings, like all those cool kids on social media. I draw art for this thing on occasion and make really shitty memes!!
> 
> Also quick shout out for @AgentNein for just editing things on a whim. You're one of the real ones, bro, thanks for your sacrifice.


End file.
